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TRANSPARENT BALLOT BOXES FOR TRANSPARENT ELECTION

Politics

In accordance with the agreement between the OSCE mission to Armenia and the Central Election Commission, 2000 transparent ballot boxes were delivered to Yerevan.

To be frank, the event was not as impressive as expected. Very common and not so transparent plastic boxes with black caps were just like pans of Iranian production. Maybe it is a subjective judgement. Any way, we are grateful to the U.S., Germany, Switzerland and Norway governments for the gift and hopeful that it would really promote transparent election in Armenia.

German and U.S. ambassadors to Armenia and Norwegian consul as well as the heads of the USAID and the OSCE mission to Armenia were present today at Zvartnots airport to receive the boxes.

Upon receiving the boxes, the diplomats handed them to the CEC deputy chairman who said proudly that Armenia is the only CIS country using such kind of ballot boxes.

Nevertheless, the boxes prompted some journalists to voice some doubt at the boxes’ appearance. “Whether boxes are transparent enough?” the question was. “Yes, they are quite transparent to see what is in them”, OSCE Armenian office representative Roy Reeve answered.

Answering the question reporters put to him about how much the boxes cost, the OSCE representative said the price is symbolic and hardly makes $20 million, as some media outlets reported. German diplomat said in low undertones: “50,000 Euro”.

2000 transparent ballot boxes were moved to proper election commissions to be distributed among 1865 polling stations all over the republic.