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    Categories: 2021

Armenian Parliament Approves Changes To Electoral System

Big News Network
April 1 2021

The Armenian parliament has adopted changes to the country's Electoral Code that the opposition says are aimed at helping Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian win snap elections expected in June.

The amendments, announced on March 24 by Pashinian, whose My Step faction dominates the National Assembly, will switch the Caucasus country's electoral system to a fully proportional one.

Armenians have until now voted for parties and alliances as well as individual candidates. In the last two general elections, parliament seats were equally distributed among candidates picked through national party lists and individual races.

The amendments adopted on April 1 mean that the next election will be held only on a proportional, party-list basis. Only by pro-government lawmakers voted for the changes.

No one from the opposition faction Bright Armenia participated in the vote, while lawmakers from the opposition Prosperous Armenia faction boycotted the parliamentary meeting.

Following talks with the opposition, Pashinian on March 18 agreed to hold early general elections on June 20 in an effort to defuse a political crisis sparked by a war late last year with Azerbaijan over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Armenia has been in the grip of political upheaval since November, when Pashinian signed a Moscow-brokered cease-fire agreement with Azerbaijan that ended six weeks of fighting in and around Nagorno-Karabakh.

Under the deal, a chunk of Nagorno-Karabakh and all seven districts around it were placed under Azerbaijani administration after almost 30 years of control by ethnic Armenian forces.

The opposition held demonstrations in a bid to force Pashinian to step down over his handling of the war, during which more than 6,000 people were killed.

But the prime minister, whose My Step faction dominates parliament, has refused to resign, agreeing to early elections instead.

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Emil Lazarian: “I should like to see any power of the world destroy this race, this small tribe of unimportant people, whose wars have all been fought and lost, whose structures have crumbled, literature is unread, music is unheard, and prayers are no more answered. Go ahead, destroy Armenia . See if you can do it. Send them into the desert without bread or water. Burn their homes and churches. Then see if they will not laugh, sing and pray again. For when two of them meet anywhere in the world, see if they will not create a New Armenia.” - WS