Armine Udumyan

According to reliable sources, a number of political parties who have no chance to get elected by fair competition during the upcoming parliamentary elections (i.e. to overcome the required 5% barrier) are campaigning in the “traditional manner”. Unfortunately we cannot publish the names and positions of our sources, so as not to put them in danger. These parties intend to get the votes they need through electoral bribes. After sharing this information known to almost everyone with Hetq, one source added that these parties approach this “business” with the utmost seriousness, and that they make accurate calculations. Thus, one of the parties with a near-zero rating has calculated the number of votes it needs in the following way. 1,200,000 people participate in elections on average. 5% of this number is 60,000. As a rule 50,000 ballots are invalid. But to be on the safe side, the party doesn’t deduct this number from the number of votes to be bought. The rates of election bribes are also known - AMD 5,000 (about $9) on average for the majoritarian elections, and even less for the proportional elections, because of the lack of competition (fewer people offer money for the proportional elections).

However, the party has calculated that even if it buys the votes for AMD 5,000 each, it is still worthwhile, because shrewd people who engage in this business don’t waste money on visits to the regions, meetings with the electors, etc., so they can always come up with the $500,000 they need get elected to parliament. And if we take into account that not all the votes are bought with cash, the party may even save money.

Another such party has not been as scrupulous in studying vote-buying techniques, and has chosen as its electorate families with big electricity debts, as a result of which the party pays more for each vote, since it paid off electricity debts of more than AMD 30,000. But one family has two or three voters on average.

In one of the villages there is an ongoing auction for votes - one majoritarian candidate has offered to pay at least AMD 2,000-3,000 more for each vote than his rival.