By Astghik Bedevian
YEREVAN (Azatutyun) — Former President Robert Kocharyan’s Hayastan alliance said on Tuesday, June 9, that it will ask Armenia’s Constitutional Court to annul the official results of Sunday’s parliamentary elections that have also been rejected as fraudulent by other opposition groups.
According to the preliminary results released by the Central Election Commission (CEC), Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party won the elections with 49.8 percent of the vote. Billionaire Samvel Karapetyan’s Strong Armenia bloc came in a distant second with 23.3 percent, followed by Hayastan which got almost 10 percent.
The official figures also showed that none of the other major opposition forces won at least 4 percent of the vote needed for being represented in the country’s new parliament. Gagik Tsarukyan’s Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) fell just several dozen votes short of that legal threshold.
The BHK, Strong Armenia and Hayastan and the BHK alleged numerous irregularities throughout the voting and ballot counting accompanied by continuing arrests of their members or supporters accused of vote buying. They also cried foul after Pashinyan claimed a “historic victory” early on Monday when less than one-fifth of the ballots cast were counted by election officials.
The premier’s political allies deny that his statement predetermined the vote results. Kocharyan claimed on Monday, June 8, evening that they were seriously affected by “widespread government pressure, arrests of oppositionists, unprecedented use of administrative resources, and electoral violations.” Ishkhan Saghatelyan, a leading Hayastan figure, echoed the claim the next day when he announced the opposition bloc’s decision to appeal to the Constitutional Court.
