The Prosperous Armenia Party has used 390 fake accounts on Facebook during its election campaign to create an impression of having a high level of support online.
These fake accounts were managed by the members of a number of youth organizations adjacent to the PAP: one person managing 5 fake accounts.
The member of the fact-finding team of the Union of Informed Citizens managed to be “employed” for one of these organizations, as a result of which we were able to find out the information that we would like to present you.
Thus, in fact the “Chamber of United Leaders” NGO, affiliated with the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP), is led MP Vahe Enfiajyan’s assistant Lianna Manukyan.
This 21-year-old girl, however, was registered as a deputy assistant of the parliamentarian and, at the same time, led the Chamber of United Leaders NGO which mission was Vahe Enfiajyan’s campaign on Facebook.
The members of the organization were divided into several groups, each of whom received logins and passwords of 5 fake Facebook accounts with which they were supposed to work.
Then Lianna or other members of the PAP youth wing gave instructions to the employees through a Facebook group, telling them to leave a comment under a specific Facebook post, to disseminate it or to put a like. All this should have been done through the five fake accounts that were given beforehand.
After doing their job, the “fake-guards” were supposed to screenshot all their actions and present them to Lianna in a flash drive․ Afterwards Lianna was to turn the files to Gagik Tsarukayan’s office.
How did we find out about all of this?
Ofelia Simonyan, a representative of our team, was able to appear among the “the army of the fakes” with a pre-designed program.
After a successful interview with Lianna Manukyan, they agreed that Ofelia should carry out the PR of the PAP and be paid 100,000 drams per month.
However, no type of work or service contract was signed. Moreover, Ofelia was not even registered with Tax Authorities (which is an administrative offense).
A few days after the arrangement, Lianna Manukyan added our staff member in a special Facebook group where she would give further instructions.
The Facebook group that we ended up in was called “For the Sake of Armenia 3” which had 13 members:
Lianna Manukyan- https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100007822238894
Mariam Abrahamyan – https://www.facebook.com/mariam.abrahamyan.568
Gayane Militosyan – https://www.facebook.com/gayan.militosyan
Hovhannes Khandilyan – https://www.facebook.com/hovo.kandilyan
Lilia Manukyan – https://www.facebook.com/lilia.manukyan.77
Mariam Stepanyan – https://www.facebook.com/mariam.stepanyan.10
Never Gasparyan – https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100016819658468
Tatevik Militosyan – https://www.facebook.com/tatevik.militosyan
Tatev Sinanyan – https://www.facebook.com/tatev.sinanyan.1
Hakob Badiryan – https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100006485079877
Alla Tumanyan – https://www.facebook.com/alla.tumanyan.39
Anna Karapetyan – https://www.facebook.com/anulya98
Meri Hakhverdyan – https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100010074371245
After being included in this group and receiving the fake accounts, our team member was instructed to write a special encrypted letter to MP Enfiajyan so that he would accept that fake user among his Facebook friends’ list.
After receiving Enfiajyan’s approval, the main work was starting. Tasks were put in the group on daily basis, which were to be done quickly. Below we present some of them.
By the way, Lianna is a rather strict leader and does not like when her subordinates are late. The photo shows that the latter explains angrily that those who are late for the meeting will no longer be working.
In the framework of another meeting Vahe Enfiajyan was supposed to meet with the fake account owner activists. During the meeting, it was discussed which candidates the fakes were supposed to support.
As you can see, it was decided that the fakes were to support only Vahe Enfiajyan.
The work was progressing smoothly and quietly until the moment when Hetq published an article which stirred chaos among the members of the “fake-guard” organization.
The mentioned article had the headline “Dissolved NGO, the NGO of a MP Candidate and other organizations affiliated to Tsarukyan have submitted an application for election observation mission”. The article mentioned the NGO of Lianna Manukyan too.
The news agency found out that the “Chamber of United Leaders” NGO, registered at the residence of Manukyan, has submitted an application for conducting observation mission in the snap parliamentary elections with 5411 observers.
It should be noted that Article 30 (1) of the Electoral Code states:
“The following non-governmental organizations have the right to act as observation mission during elections: the non-governmental organizations of the Republic of Armenia whose charter objectives include — for minimum 1 years preceding the day of calling elections — issues related to democracy and protection of human rights and which do not support candidates or political parties running in elections.”
It is obvious that the violation of the law is evident, and the reaction of the fake-guards was very strong towards this publication by Hetq.
Nevertheless, this young wing organization of PAP managed to carry out observation mission during the snap parliamentary elections, again with violations.
At 12/3 polling station in Artashat, Ararat marz, the observer of “Asparez” club noticed how two observers from the “Chamber of United Leaders” NGO, under the patronage of PAP, were at the same polling station at the same time. While the issue was being discussed, even the third observer appeared.
Below we also publish the logins of the mentioned 5 fake accounts that Lianna Manukyan has shared with our teammate. Moreover, it should be mentioned that in case of possible threats against our team member Ofelia Simonyan from the youth structures of the PAP, “Union of Informed Citizens” NGO will turn to the law enforcement bodies.
