Parliamentary elections held in Armenia today

2009 precincts opened throughout Armenia at 8 a.m. on 2 April, and by 8 p.m. will be closed again. A total of 2,564,195 citizens in Armenia are eligible to vote in the election – that’s how many people there are on the voters’ lists.

Over 28,000 observers from the local public and human rights organizations, as well as over 600 representatives of international missions, will monitor the course of the election.

In an unprecedented move, Armenia’s pubic radio will be covering the voting process live from 8 a.m. till nine in the evening. The coverage will now and again take the listeners live to the polling stations where there’s going to be a steady flow of updates from the central electoral commission, reports by observers and commentary by experts. Phone-ins from voters will also be featured. In Yerevan, the public radio is available at FM 107.7.

To listen to it on the internet, follow this link.

Keep an eye on how the voting proceeds at the polling stations here.

In this election, the voters will, for the first time, cast their ballots through an entirely new system.  But in the experts’ opinion, a new voting procedure is not only incomprehensible and confusing, but also too complicated.

5 political parties and 4 blocs are participating in this election. Over 1,500 people are standing for Parliament, and nearly one-third of MP candidates are women. Under the constitutional amendments introduced as a result of 6 December 2015’s referendum, the National Assembly will be elected for the first time solely through a proportional system.

The newly elected National Assembly will assume basic authoritative powers, since Armenia will switch from a semi-presidential to a parliamentary form of government.

There will be at least 101 MPs in the future Parliament. A political force that will manage to gain 54% of votes (and more) will enjoy a guaranteed stable majority in Parliament. The election runoff will be held provided that none of the political forces standing in election manage to gain the required number of votes.

Political forces united in blocs, that will overcome the first round threshold, will be entitled to stand in the election runoff: a threshold for the political parties makes 5%, for blocs – 7%. 4 MP mandates will be allocated to the largest ethnic communities – Yazidis, Russians, Assyrians and Kurds.

The new Parliament will elect the President who will be in power for a period of 7 years.  The President, in turn, will appoint the Prime Minister, a candidate from a political party or bloc who manages to gain 54% of votes.