Clear victory for Prime Minister Pash’s party …

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s Party Wins Sunday’s Legislative Elections With Large Advantage, overtaking those who blamed him for the humiliating military defeat against Azerbaijan last year. Pashinyan’s Civil Contract grouping won 53.9% of the vote after the closing of the final inspection, which It will allow you to form a government on your own without the need to resort to alliances. His main rival, the Armenian bloc of former president Robert Kocharián, reaches 21 percent of the vote and refuses to acknowledge the result by denouncing “Fraud” and “planned counterfeits”. Election date had to be brought forward due to war in Nagorno-Karabakh region.

“We already know that we have achieved a resounding victory in the elections and that we will have a significant majority in Parliament.”, he claimed Pashinian in a speech broadcast live on his Facebook page. This 46-year-old reformist, who came to power in 2018 after a peaceful revolution against old elites deemed corrupt, saw his popularity suddenly collapse after Armenia was defeated in the war against Azerbaijan in November 2020.

After six weeks of fighting that left nearly 6,000 dead, Armenia was forced to relinquish large areas it controlled., since a first war in the 1990s around Karabakh, a secessionist region of Azerbaijan with a majority Armenian.

Seen as a humiliation, this defeat generated a political crisis in Armenia, forcing Pashinyan to call early parliamentary elections in the hope of easing tensions and strengthening his legitimacy. Many of his former supporters accuse him of being a “traitor” for having accepted a ceasefire and are now leaning on the side of his adversaries.

Pashinyan went to a military cemetery on Monday morning to kneel in front of the graves of dead soldiers and lay flowers. The Armenian Prime Minister had last week urged his compatriots to give him a “steel mandate” and warned against “a civil war” in the event of non-accompaniment to the polls.

The Armenian opposition bloc, led by former conservative president Robert Kocharián, says it will challenge election results. The alliance “will appeal to the Constitutional Court, but will also hold consultations with other participants in the elections to consider the possibility of a joint appeal,” the political force said in a statement.

According to the opposition bloc, who won 29 seats in the Armenian National Assembly, the authorities made “intensive use” of administrative resources, even “intimidating” voters. The political force also denounces forgeries and the payment of “disguised bribes” in some Armenian regions to encourage citizens to vote for the ruling party, among other alleged irregularities.

Later the block “I have the honor” of the third Armenian president, Serge Sargsian, which obtained 5.23% of the votes and will have seven seats, He said he also did not recognize the election result, who seek to “legitimize the human and territorial losses” of Armenia in Nagorno-Karabakh.

However, the furious denunciations of the opposition contradict the preliminary report of the observers of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE). “Ultimately, the elections were competitive and generally well organized within a short period of time.”OSCE Head of Delegation Kari Henriksen told a press conference. According to PACE, there were some minor “technical irregularities”, which will not influence the outcome of the elections.

The turnout in Sunday’s parliamentary elections reached 49.4% and was higher than that of the snap elections of 2018, despite the forecasts which predicted a strong abstention due to the disappointment of the citizens vis-à-vis the political caste and the uncertainty after the military setback of Nagorno-Karabakh.