The official presidential race has launched in Armenia Monday, January 21, with PACE observer mission having earlier expressed concern over the course of the campaign. PACE’s remarks involved low public interest to elections, inaccuracies in voters’ lists and impossibility to vote abroad.

However, as the director of the International expert Center for Electoral Systems (ICES) said, PACE’s pessimistic assessment is premature and somewhat biased.

“Preliminary monitoring shows that Central Election Committee (CEC) and the ruling party are the ones most interested in the accuracy of voters’ lists. The lists were posted on CEC website for every voter to make sure his name was included,” Alexander Tsinker said.

“Any country may be accused of inaccuracies; however, to the best of my knowledge, after the 2012 parliamentary elections the inaccuracies were eliminated,” he said.

As Professor John Swails, a member of ICES observer mission noted, though the fact that the 1st and 2nd presidents of Armenia are not on the list of hopefuls somewhat decreases the acuteness of the vote, it can in no way be deemed a violation.