Pre-election ‘love’ games

Armenia’s largest ethnic minority groups, such as Yazidis, Russians, Assyrians and Kurds, give preference to the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA). The matter concerns the parliamentary elections that are scheduled for April 2. The representatives of top four huge communities, comprising the permanent residents, have already claimed, they would like to be represented in elections in the RPA party list. In other words, they view it as the best chance to have their representatives in parliament.

Under the Constitution and the Electoral Code of Armenia, the second part of the national electoral list of a party or a party bloc should include at least 2 and no more than 4 representatives of ethnic minority groups.

The representative of the Russian community in Armenia, the head of the Assyrian community, as well as the chair of the ‘Media-Shangal’ Yazidi national union NGO, told Tert.am about their intention to join the ruling party.

An exception from those, who were interviewed, turned out to be the representative of ‘Sinjar’ Yazidi national union NGO, who claimed that under the Electoral Code, it’s up to the parties to decide which ethnic minorities should be included in their lists. At the same time, the NGO representative stressed that personally he and some of his organization’s fellow member prefer to be included in the list of another party, the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP). However, ‘Sinjar’ organization has not received any proposals from the PAP so far.