YEREVAN, March 16. /ARKA/. Armenia’s Justice Minister Rustam Badasyan described today allegations that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s administration will use the administrative resource to rig the snap parliamentary elections in its favor as ‘comical’.
The minister also downplayed allegations that the elections would cause safety-related challenges, saying that all appropriate measures will be provided during the early elections.
‘As for the allegations that administrative resources will be used to rig the polls, they are comical, since we proved both during the national and local elections that at least after June 2018 there was no election fraud and no vote-rigging attempt in Armenia,” Badasyan said speaking to journalists.
Some of the journalists disagreed claiming that Nikol Pashinyan used administrative resources to increase the turnout at a rally he called on March 1. The minister responded by describing these claims as “speculation’ and cited the findings of a recent public opinion poll showing that the ruling political force has the highest rating.
He also noted that in order to overcome the grave consequences of the war in Nagorno-Karabakh, it is necessary to take specific measures, and people should be able to express their position with their own voice.
Badasyan said the elimination of systemic corruption and the improvement of the business environment in the country were the government’s major achievements, which had a very positive effect on business and resulted in a 30% revenue growth in 2019.
“According to the Corruption Perceptions Index over the past 2 years, we registered progress by 14 points at once,” Badasyan said. -0-