Monday, June 21, 2021
EU President Congratulates Pashinian On Election Win
June 21, 2021
BELGIUM -- European Council President Charles Michel, right, welcomes Armenian
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian ahead of a meeting at the European Council
building in Brussels, June 2, 2021
The European Union’s top official on Monday congratulated Prime Minister Nikol
Pashinian on his party’s victory in Armenia’s weekend parliamentary elections.
“Warm congratulations to Nikol Pashinian on elections victory,” tweeted European
Council President Charles Michel.
“The EU stands by Armenia in support of deepening reforms,” he wrote. “We are
also ready to further support regional stabilization and comprehensive conflict
settlement.”
The EU announced last week that it has allocated almost 1 million euros ($1.2
million) for the proper conduct of the snap elections aimed at ending a serious
political crisis in the country. Much of that money was provided to local
election observers.
“I call upon all electoral stakeholders, their supporters and those who use the
mass media and social media to increase efforts to contribute to making June 20
a day in which democracy wins, for the future of Armenian children,” Andrea
Wiktorin, the head of EU Delegation in Yerevan, said on June 17.
Michel and Pashinian met in Brussels as recently as on June 2. A continuing
border dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan was reportedly high on the agenda
of their talks.
Michel also had a phone call with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev later that
day. A spokesman said he told Pashinian and Aliyev that the EU is “ready to
provide expertise on border delimitation and demarcation and to support
confidence building.”
Kocharian’s Bloc To Challenge Election Results In Court
June 21, 2021
• Gayane Saribekian
• Naira Nalbandian
Armenia - Members of a precinct commission in Yerevan count ballots cast in
Armenia's parliamentary elections, June 20, 2021.
Former President Robert Kocharian’s main opposition Hayastan alliance said on
Monday that it will ask Armenia’s Constitutional Court to overturn the official
results of Sunday’s parliamentary elections that gave a landslide victory to the
ruling Civil Contract party.
Hayastan reiterated that the results are “extremely dubious.” “We have serious
grounds to consider these elections illegitimate,” it said in a statement.
The bloc again charged that irregularities reported by its proxies from many
polling stations “testify to a systematic and pre-planned falsification of the
election results.” It accused the Armenian authorities of abusing their
administrative levers and harassing Hayastan activists to keep Prime Minister
Nikol Pashinian in power. It also pointed to power outages that plunged much of
Armenia into darkness shortly the start of vote counting late on Sunday.
“The Hayastan alliance will use all legal tools, including an appeal to the
Constitutional Court, to challenge the election results,” added the statement.
It was announced separately that Kocharian and his close associates will hold a
news conference on Tuesday.
ARMENIA -- Former President Robert Kocharian speaks during a campaign rally
ahead of the upcoming snap parliamentary election in the town of Aparan, June
10, 2021
Pashinian described the snap election as free and fair when he claimed victory
overnight. European observers likewise gave a largely positive assessment of the
authorities’ handling of the vote.
According to the official results announced by the Central Election Commission
(CEC) on Monday morning, Pashinian’s party won almost 54 percent of the vote and
will retain a two-thirds majority in the Armenian parliament.
Kocharian’s bloc came in a distant second with 21 percent, followed by the
opposition Pativ Unem alliance led by another ex-president, Serzh Sarkisian,
which got 5.2 percent, according to the CEC.
Pativ Unem will have parliament seats despite failing to clear a 7 percent vote
threshold because Armenian law stipulates that at least three political forces
must be represented in the National Assembly. It did not officially react to the
official vote tally by Monday evening.
ARMENIA -- Armenian acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian speaks to his party
colleagues after a parliamentary elections in Yerevan, June 21, 2021
It is expected that the new parliament will have 107 seats and 71 of them will
be controlled by Civil Contract. Hayastan and Pativ Unem should have 29 and 7
seats respectively.
The opposition blocs fuelled speculation that they could refuse to take up their
seats in protest against the alleged vote rigging. With the Armenian
constitution reserving at least one-third of the parliament seats for the
opposition, commentators wondered if such a drastic step could hamper the work
of the new parliament or call into question its legitimacy.
Speaking at a news conference, the CEC chairman, Tigran Mukuchian, was reluctant
to comment on potential legal consequences of an opposition walkout. He said
only that Hayastan’s and Pativ Unem’s seats cannot be passed on to other
election contenders in that case.
European Observers Praise Armenian Election Conduct
June 21, 2021
Armenia - The heads of an international election observation mission hold a news
conference in Yerevan, June 21, 2021.
European observers gave on Monday a largely positive assessment of the Armenian
authorities’ handling of the weekend parliamentary elections won by Prime
Minister and his Civil Contract party.
The heads of the largest international observation mission mostly deployed to
Armenia by the Organization for Security and Cooperation (OSCE) presented its
preliminary findings at a joint news conference in Yerevan. The mission
consisted of over 330 monitors who visited polling stations across the country
during Sunday’s voting and ensuing ballot counting.
“Our overall conclusion is that the June 20 early parliamentary elections in the
Republic of Armenia were competitive and generally very well-managed within a
short time frame,” said Kari Henriksen of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly.
“However, they were characterized by intense polarization and marked by
increasingly inflammatory rhetoric among key contestants.”
“Election day, including the vote count, was assessed positively overall,”
stressed Henriksen.
“Despite a very polarized political climate we had elections that were held very
well and without any compromise to their democratic character,” said George
Katrougalos, who led two dozen observers dispatched by the Council of Europe’s
Parliamentary Assembly.
Katrougalos said they witnessed only “some minor technical irregularities in
some polling stations” which could have seriously affected the outcome of the
snap elections. All Armenian political factions should therefore accept the
official vote results that gave a landslide victory Pashinian’s party, he told
reporters.
Pashinian described the vote as free and fair when he claimed victory overnight.
The main opposition contender, the Hayastan alliance led by former President
Robert Kocharian, refused to concede defeat, saying that it suspects a
“coordinated and pre-planned falsification of the election results.” It accused
the authorities of abusing their administrative levers and harassing Hayastan
activists to keep Pashinian in power.
Eoghan Murphy, who led most members of the monitoring mission deployed by the
OSCE’s Warsaw-based Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, urged
the Armenian authorities to properly investigate all allegations of fraud and
foul play. But he emphasized in that regard the mission’s “generally positive
assessment of what happened in polling stations” on Sunday.
Murphy also said: “All candidates could campaign freely throughout the process
and voters were provided with a broad range of options.”
Armenian PM Claims Election Victory
June 21, 2021
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian votes at a polling station in Yerevan,
June 20, 2021.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian claimed victory in Armenia’s snap parliamentary
elections early on Monday, citing their official early results.
The Central Election Commission (CEC) said three hours later that with about 80
percent of ballots cast counted, Pashinian’s Civil Contract party had 55.3
percent of the vote. Its main opposition challenger, the Hayastan (Armenia)
alliance led by former President Robert Kocharian, came in a distant second with
20.3 percent.
Another opposition force, the Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK), was falling short
of a 5 percent threshold to get seats in the country’s new parliament, according
to the CEC.
The official results put former President Serzh Sarkisian’s opposition Pativ
Unem bloc in third place with 5.2 percent. But under Armenian law, party
alliances need to poll at least 7 percent of the vote in order to be represented
in the National Assembly.
The 21 other parties and blocs running in the elections fared much worse.
Pashinian arrived at the Civil Contract headquarters in Yerevan after midnight
to declare his party’s victory in the polls.
“We can conclude that the people of Armenia have given Civil Contract and me a
mandate to lead the country,” he said in a speech delivered there.
Pashinian described his victory as a “steel revolution” that will allow him to
resort to tougher methods of governance and establish a “dictatorship of the
law” in the country.
Meanwhile, Hayastan refused to concede defeat, saying that the partial vote
results “do not inspire trust.”
“They sharply contradict various manifestations of public life which we have
witnessed in the last eight months, the results of all opinion polls … and
common sense,” the opposition bloc said in a statement.
It said that Sunday’s voting was marred by hundreds of fraud reports that
“testify to a coordinated and pre-planned falsification of the election
results.” Hayastan will thoroughly examine the “recorded and presumed
irregularities,” it said.
“As long as all contentious issues have not been fully explained and suspicions
have not been dispelled the Hayastan alliance will not recognize the election
results,” added the statement.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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