Turnout and a half: what will Pashinyan's victory lead to in the Armenian elections

The results of the parliamentary elections held on June 7 were summed up in Armenia. The ruling Civil Contract party failed to reach the target of 50% of the vote, but it will form a government on its own anyway. Details can be found in the Izvestia article.

Counting in the dark

Parliamentary elections were held in Armenia on June 7. The turnout was 59%, which is 10 percentage points more than during the last campaign in 2021. Queues were forming at the ballot boxes in many areas.

Prime Minister and leader of the ruling Civil Contract party Nikol Pashinyan arrived at the polling station early in the morning. He told reporters that he has "very close relations" with Vladimir Putin and has made progress with the European Union — Brussels is allegedly ready to launch Armenian agricultural products on its market.

In the afternoon, the main opponent of the prime minister, the leader of "Strong Armenia" Samvel Karapetyan, who is under house arrest, was taken to the police station. He managed to say that he was confident of his victory and advocated the formation of a "legitimate government." "We must have good relations with America, the European Union, and Russia," the politician said.

At the same time, the elections became unprecedentedly dirty — representatives of the opposition were subjected to fierce forceful pressure. On the eve of the election day, the country's Anti-Corruption Committee reported on the detention of 194 people and the initiation of criminal cases against 209 people. On election day, incidents continued, for example, security forces broke into the office of Strong Armenia in Gyumri and seized three people.

In addition, Pashinyan's opponents complained about the use of administrative resources by the authorities. Ishkhan Saghatelyan, the second number on the list of the Armenia bloc, said that employees of schools, kindergartens, city halls, regional administrations, ministries, national parks and other budgetary institutions were first driven to Pashinyan's election rallies, and then urged to vote for a "Civil contract."

Finally, there was evidence of direct violations on social media. "Government representatives meet with voters near polling stations, guide them, and sometimes even enter booths with them. There are cases when people come with ready-made ballots. There are cases when government representatives enter polling booths with groups of people," said Arthur Khachikyan, Doctor of Political Sciences.

The most characteristic episode is related to blackouts. Video surveillance cameras are installed at the sites, which do not work in the dark. At the same time, both in Yerevan and in rural areas, on the evening of June 7, during the counting of votes, the electricity was suddenly turned off, meaning the cameras could not take pictures. It is believed that at this time, pro-government activists were casting additional ballots.

At the same time, observers assessed the procedure differently. Dmitry Kobitsky, a representative of the CIS Interparliamentary Assembly, called the atmosphere of the propaganda campaign difficult. He stated that he had never seen so many arrests, detentions and insults before.

In turn, the head of the CIS mission, Nurlan Seytimov, assessed what he saw positively. According to him, parties and candidates enjoyed equal opportunities during the campaign period, various "omissions" were promptly eliminated on election day, and no violations were identified that would affect the outcome of the election.

The revolution is on pause

After the end of the election, the counting of votes began. Interestingly, after processing the first 10% of the ballots, Nikol Pashinyan announced his unconditional victory. The opposition stressed in this regard that the head of government is not actually stating the fact, but once again instructs the staff of the election commissions and the Central Election Commission.

Another strange thing was that the counting of votes was interrupted several times during the night. "In world history, there has never been a case where the process was interrupted during the summing up with the words that the results would be presented in the morning. When they saw that their numbers were shamefully decreasing every minute, they simply stopped counting," Samvel Karapetyan said.

As a result, on the morning of June 8, the CEC announced the final results. According to the announced data, Pashinyan's "Civil Contract" received 49.81%, in the future, due to the mechanism of redistribution of mandates, the party will have a majority and the opportunity to form a government alone. Samvel Karapetyan's Strong Armenia party (23.29%) and the Armenia bloc led by former President Robert Kocharian (9.94%) also entered parliament.

Interestingly, even before the announcement of the final results, Pashinyan had already received his first congratulations. First, on the night of June 8, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Kobakhidze sent his message. A few hours later, President of Kazakhstan Kassym-Jomart Tokayev wished success to the Armenian leader, who stressed that the elections were held openly and with proper conditions.

After the results were announced, Western leaders noted themselves, including French President Emmanuel Macron, European Council President Antonio Costa and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. In addition, congratulations were sent by Vladimir Zelensky and Speaker of the Verkhovna Rada Ruslan Stefanchuk, Chairman of the Armenian Parliament Alain Simonyan in response stated that Yerevan is ready to continue developing relations with Ukraine.

At the same time, there was no official assessment from Russia as of June 8. "We are waiting for the final results. In the meantime, we are carefully recording all the messages that appear around these elections. Among other things, we are recording reports of those numerous violations," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.

At the same time, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova has already stressed that the elections were held in an environment of unprecedented pressure on the opposition and interference from the West. She also noted that support for Pashinyan's party had "noticeably decreased" compared to the previous election cycle.

Interestingly, representatives of the Armenian opposition stated before the voting day that they would not let Pashinyan steal the victory, in case of fraud they would take people to the streets. "If they try to brazenly take away our victory, they will get a revolution," former President Robert Kocharian said on May 25. As of June 8, however, no protest actions had been announced.

What the experts say

Political scientist Artur Ataev calls the election result predictable, recalling that many analysts believed that the "Civil Contract" would retain the primacy.

— The main surprise was the result of Samvel Karapetyan's "Strong Armenia". Prior to this campaign, he had no political background, the campaign itself took place under fierce pressure, Karapetyan was first imprisoned, and is now under house arrest. In such circumstances, I consider the second place of the association to be a great success," the source notes.

After these elections, the deterioration of relations between Russia and Armenia will continue, the expert adds. And the initiators of the breakup, in his opinion, will be the Russian side.

— For some reason, Pashinyan considers it possible to move closer to the European Union at the political level, while receiving all the economic bonuses from cooperation with Moscow and the EAEU. It is clear that in reality this is impossible, relations between Russia and Armenia will consistently collapse," Atayev emphasizes.

At the same time, Alexander Krylov, chief researcher at the Caucasus sector of the IMEMO RAS Center for Post-Soviet Studies, believes that the Armenian opposition can still prove itself.

— Everyone is waiting for the final distribution of votes in parliament until the CEC has announced the official results. If Pashinyan's opponents realize that they have no chance of success, then I think decisive action will follow. They can take people to the streets, protest violations in court, or appeal to the international community. They have quite a lot of options for action," says the source.