Politics

The parliamentary elections of 2017 will continue with frauds, as provisions proposed by the opposition and civil society representatives during the 4+4+4 format were not accepted, says Deputy Director of the Transparency International Anti-Corruption Center Sona Ayvazyan.

A leader of a recently established opposition party says they have managed to “keep” all votes cast for their candidate in Sunday’s mayoral elections in a provincial town. Yet, the incumbent mayor from the ruling party has still won in the election marred by allegations of vote buying and fraud.

A new political party being set up by Vartan Oskanian, a former foreign minister critical of Armenia’s current government, will be called Hamakhmbum (Consolidation), it emerged today.

The ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) and its allies that dominate the Armenian National Assembly on Thursday ensured a first-reading passage of a new electoral bill that had earlier become a subject of heated discussions in and outside the legislature.

Armenia’s opposition groups reacted mostly with skepticism to Prime Minister Hovik Abrahamyan’s “revolutionary” call for speedy reforms in various spheres of Armenia’s political and public life, casting doubts that rhetoric will be followed by real action.

Armenia’s amended Constitution scraps the hitherto applied mixed system of electoral voting and parliamentary representation and replaces it with an all-proportional one, but debate over whether elements of the majoritarian system should be retained in the elections appears to continue in the country’s political circles.

The government says at least two of the proposals of the opposition and civil society will be included in the draft election code, which is set to be submitted to the National Assembly this week. However, the opposition says this does not meet its expectations.

This week, Alan Meale and Giuseppe Galati, co-rapporteurs on Armenia of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) Monitoring Committee, during their visit to the country, met the President, Prime Minister and a number of senior officials to discuss Armenia’s democratic and legislative development processes, as well as issues linked with the April four-day war in Nagorno Karabakh.

Armenia’s former Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian, who plans to set up a political party soon, disagrees with the view of former president and current opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosyan that “now is not the time to accuse the authorities and try to hold them accountable for mistakes and failings.”

Hrazdan’s mayor Aram Danielyan representing the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) has been reelected in a Sunday vote that opposition members and observers claim was held in condition of numerous violations.