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    Categories: 2021

RFE/RL Armenian Report – 06/21/2021

                                        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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Hovsep Chakrian: