Early elections will be held in December, the winner of which will be the people – Nikol Pashinyan

18:43,

YEREVAN, OCTOBER 22, ARMENPRESS. The parliamentary majority of Armenia spares no efforts to pursue a policy of sabotage, Acting Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan said in a Facebook live broadcast, commenting on today’s voting of the package of amendments of the Electoral Code of Armenia.

“The amendments of the Electoral Code proposed by the Government have been wrecked. I want to say that the amendments were aimed for making the Electoral Code more democratic, simple and clear.  By this vote the National Assembly showed that early parliamentary elections are inevitable and without the early elections we will be unable to do anything. The parliamentary majority and their supporters spare no efforts to pursue a policy of sabotage. This was evident in the past few days. They hope that they will be able to turn the early parliamentary elections into revenge”, ARMENPRESS reports Pashinyan as saying.

According to him, if the early elections take place with the current Electoral Code, nothing will change, since the victory of the people is inevitable.

“I call on the citizens of Armenia to prepare for early elections for reaching the power change and the revolution to its end. Irrespective of the electoral code, the victory of the people is inevitable, and there will be no revenge. Fight against corruption will continue in Armenia for the sake of national unity. The revolution continues and it will reach its final destination. Early elections will be held in December, the winner of which will be the people. The parliamentary voting showed that the Government works in the atmosphere of sabotage”, Nikol Pashinyan said, emphasizing that sabotage has no chance to succeed.

 The Armenian parliament has failed to pass the bill package of Electoral Code amendments.

56 Members of Parliament voted in favor of adopting the bill, and three voted against.

63 votes were required for the bill to be adopted.

Most of the Republican Party (HHK) faction MPs did not attend the voting in an apparent boycott.

Only 59 MPs were in attendance and even if theoretically all would’ve voted in favor the bill still would fail to pass.

Earlier, the Venice Commission issued a statement over the amendment package, noting that the proposed amendments pursue legitimate goals and are mainly positive. The main idea of the amendments was to cancel the ranked voting system and introduce proportional electoral system. Also the threshold of entering the parliament would be reduced by 1%.