According to the preliminary results released by the Central Election Commission (CEC), Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s Civil Contract party won the elections with 49.8 percent of the vote. Billionaire Samvel Karapetian’s Strong Armenia bloc came in a distant second with 23.3 percent, followed by Hayastan which got almost 10 percent.
The official figures also showed that none of the other major opposition forces won at least 4 percent of the vote needed for being represented in the country’s new parliament. Gagik Tsarukian’s Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) fell just several dozen votes short of that legal threshold.
The BHK, Strong Armenia and Hayastan and the BHK alleged numerous irregularities throughout the voting and ballot counting accompanied by continuing arrests of their members or supporters accused of vote buying. They also cried foul after Pashinian claimed a “historic victory” early on Monday when less than one-fifth of the ballots cast were counted by election officials.
The premier’s political allies deny that his statement predetermined the vote results. Kocharian claimed on Monday evening that they were seriously affected by “widespread government pressure, arrests of oppositionists, unprecedented use of administrative resources, and electoral violations.” Ishkhan Saghatelian, a leading Hayastan figure, echoed the claim the next day when he announced the opposition bloc’s decision to appeal to the Constitutional Court.
“Despite clearly understanding who sits in the Constitutional Court, their constraints and the fact that they are clearly government appendages, we will go to the Constitutional Court with weighty facts after the publication of the final [election] results,” he told a news conference. “Our legal team is working on a package.”
Both Hayastan and Strong Armenia faced calls from some opposition supporters to refuse to take up their parliament seats in protest against the alleged vote rigging. They seemed reluctant to do that. Karapetian’s right-hand man and nephew Narek indicated on Tuesday that his bloc’s decision on the issue depends on whether the BHK will succeed in gaining parliament seats.
Tsarukian’s party initiated ballot recounts in some electoral precincts for that purpose. It claimed late on Monday to have already found glaring discrepancies between the numbers of BHK votes shown in several precinct protocols and the CEC tally. The BHK’s entry into the new National Assembly would strip Civil Contract of a 60 percent majority needed for the passage of some key laws and parliamentary confirmation of senior law-enforcement officials and judges handpicked by Pashinian. Narek Karapetian emphasized this fact.
Another senior Strong Armenia member, Gohar Meloyan, said Karapetian’s bloc too may appeal to the Constitutional Court. She said the decision will be made after the CEC releases the final election results on Sunday.
Strong Armenia as well as Hayastan and another opposition party led by former human rights ombudsman Arman Tatoyan have also demanded vote recounts in dozens of polling stations in and outside Yerevan. Tatoyan said on Monday that the official results released by the CEC “do not reflect the true will of the citizens of Armenia.”