The counting process is now taking place. This picture is from constituency 2, polling station 10 in Yerevan.
Reflecting on today’s vote, commonspace.eu's political editor wrote:
The voting has closed. The Armenian people have voted, and the election process appeared to be reasonably well organised and transparent. Now the counting process starts, and often it is here that problems are encountered. These elections, however, may not be conclusive. If no party wins an outright majority of more than fifty per cent, then a process of coalition building will have to start. If within six days of the publication of the official results a coalition is not formed, the election will have to be re-run in four weeks’ time with only the two largest parties on the ballot paper. Many Armenians hope to be spared this uncertainty. The next few hours will tell us what will happen. In the meantime, Armenia’s neighbours are also watching the process. What happens in this election may define the future of peace in the region.
At 20.00 (Yeveran), the polls officially close in the 20 June 2021, Armenian early parliamentary elections.
Polling in Armenia's early parliamentary elections closes in less than an hour's time. Despite some isolated incidents, the day has passed largely peacefully. Many hope things stay that way.
Writing from Tbilisi, Arnold Stepanian, Chairman of the Public Movement Multinational Georgia said that the Armenians of Georgia share the common view that whatever the choice of the Armenian citizens is, the results must be accepted by all political forces. Civil resistance caused by political polarization must not escalate into street resistance! Despite the diametrically opposed positions of the current government and the opposition, the wisdom of the leaders of the main political actors should play a role in ensuring that the process remains peaceful.
The election is being watched by Armenia's neighbours and nowhere more so than Azerbaijan. From Baku, Dr Vasif Huseynov – a Senior Advisor at the Center of Analysis of International Relations (AIR Center) – has given commonspace.eu some insight on what Azerbaijanis are thinking as they follow the Armenian elections:
"Some updates on election day have been read in the Azerbaijani segment of social media as Robert Kocharyan's potential win in the snap parliamentary elections. He is widely seen in Azerbaijan as a revanchist political figure and is considered a threat to regional peace and stability. These concerns have been reinforced by Kocharyan's pre-election narrative and his election campaign, which on its last day on 18 June, staged an anti-Turkic song glorifying the assassination of a Turkish politician by an Armenian."
We now have the third update on voter turn-out in today's Armenian parliamentary elections. At 17.00 (Yerevan), the number of votes cast was 989,972, amounting to 38.17% of those eligible. These figures were released by the Armenian Central Elections Commission.
This announcement means that for the first time today, voter turnout is behind what it was in the last elections of 2018, where 1,025,002 voters – or 39.54% of the total number of voters – had voted at around the same time.
Track the numbers here.
Russia's TASS news agency reports that observers from the mission of the Inter-Parliamentary Assembly of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) have registered no serious violations during the voting at today's early Armenian parliamentary elections. The mission's co-ordinator, Igor Komarovsky, told TASS:
"[The electoral process] is proceeding quite calmly. Our mission has reported no serious flaws or violations."
One country which traditionally has close relations with Armenia is France, where a large diaspora population also lives. Camille Victor has been monitoring French media to look at how they have been reporting the elections.
France seems to have a particular interest in the Armenian elections, with numerous national newspapers and media outlets, such as Le Monde, Le Figaro and France 24, amongst others, closely following the elections. Although 25 parties and blocs are competing for votes, French news media almost systematically concentrates its attention on the two main contenders, Nikol Pashinyan and Robert Kocharyan, and their respective parties.
Many reports have undertones of implicit sympathy for Pashinyan’s more “democratic” governance style, at the expense of the “authoritarian” and “corrupt” characteristics of Kocharyan’s leadership.
A reporter of France 24 in Yerevan today (20 June) said Pashinyan “embodies the democratic aspirations of the country”, contrasting with Kocharyan’s description as a “stronger” man, yet “associated with the worst years of the country, with anti-democratic practices, and whose figure remains associated with the bloody repression of the 2008 opposition protests”.
On 1 June, Pashinyan paid a visit to Armenia where he was warmly greeted at the Elysee Palace. President Emmanuel Macron noted on that occasion: “I am pleased to host Acting Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan in Paris. Dear Nikol, we have worked hard together in recent years in support of your commitment to promoting democracy and fighting corruption”. He added that "France is alongside Armenia, and we will do our best to bring stability and prosperity to this country”.
