The ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) is scrambling to deny accusations that it is using schools to leverage votes for the upcoming parliamentary election.

The Union of Informed Citizens (UIC) on Friday published a list of 136 schools and kindergartens it says are actively recruiting, registering and even coercing parents to vote for the RPA. The list includes 103 schools and 33 kindergartens from Yerevan and other parts of the country.

At a press conference, Daniel Ioannisyan of UIC said that they had called the principals claiming to be from the central campaign office of the RPA, asking several questions. Among them was the issue of lists that principals were preparing of parents, teachers and members of the school administration who had pledged to vote for the RPA. According to Ioannisyan, about 80 percent of the principals admitted they had prepared the lists. The conversations were recorded and also released in the statement.

Astghik Avetisyan, the principal of a secondary school in Gyumri said that her list contained 1700 names that were ‘checked a thousand times,’ and that they had implemented several methods, including coercion, to ensure their veracity.

Below is a sampling of the published records [available only in Armenian].