A PERCENTAGE GAME IN NATIONAL ASSEMBLY

Yerkir, Armenia
Oct 30 2006

Editorial

During the last session of the parliament, it became clear that the
election campaigns have been launched not only as "charities" but
also there are attempts to secure seats in the National Assembly by
altering the Election Code.

And now people — who once were rivals — seeing common interests start
to cooperate. National Assembly’s Armenian Revolutionary Federation
faction has turned down NA member Victor Dallakian’s proposal to amend
the Election Code so that all the members of the Assembly would be
elected under the proportional system.

Speaking at the National Assembly, Armen Rustamian said that a
sharp change in the election system is impossible as there is no
political concurrence in the parliament currently. Hrair Karapetian,
the faction’s leader, in turn, said that while the ARF has always
been for the 100 percent proportional system, even when in opposition,
"today, we favor the present system because when the Election Code was
discussed a year ago, the coalition parties had no common approach."

"That’s why we accepted a compromise and backed a system under which
90 deputies are to be elected under proportional system and 41 from
single-mandate constituencies."