Whilst voting in Armenia’s parliamentary elections appears to be proceeding without major violence or incidents, Armenian social media is buzzing with reports of various violations, of varying degree of seriousness. Alexander Petrosyan has been monitoring Armenian social media from his base in Brussels.

While no major violent incidents have been reported so far, there were two reported incidents of gunfire:

• The first, was at a polling station in the Azatashen village of Armenia's Ararat district, reported to the emergency services at 08.30 – half an hour after polls opened. It’s reported that a quarrel took place between representatives of the Prosperous Armenia and Verelk parties, one of whom fired several times from a gas pistol. The pistol has apparently been confiscated and authorities are investigating. 
• The second was a shot fired at the car of Arman Babajanyan – co-leader of the Shirinyan-Babajanyan Alliance of Democrats. “[They] shot at my car. When a murderer, a thief and a Mafioso is at large and moreover is participating in elections we won’t avoid incidents like this,” Babajanyan said. It is reported that the car was unoccupied at the time.

In addition, this morning, flyers disparaging the leader of ‘Armenia Alliance’, Robert Kocharyan, have appeared across Yerevan. Kocharyan has called it a gross violation of law, alluding to government involvement. Speaking earlier, he warned “If the police do not find the criminals in the next 1-2 hours, we will consider and announce that it is being done by the authorities”.

Accusations have been circulating on several media reporting of directives given by the Ministry of Defence to soldiers in several parts of Armenia – notably Goris – to vote for Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party. The Ministry of Defence has said that it is investigating any such accusations, adding: 

“The allegations in the publications so far do not correspond to reality. It is obvious that the allegations about the referrals are based exclusively on the fact that the servicemen were brought to the polling stations in a systematic way, and the videos attached to the publications are the evidence of that.”