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.” 

One of the key features of the current elections is the quite active participation of voters in the capital Yerevan, where 29.28 percent voted, as of 2 PM, whilst on the other hand in some regions numbers are quite low. Only in the Syunik region is higher voter participation registered so far, with 33.37 percent participation as of 2 PM. If this trend continues until the end of the voting, this process may pose a significant challenge for incumbent Prime Minister Pashinyan. He enjoys strong support in rural areas and in the small cities while facing tough competition in the big cities and especially in the capital Yerevan.

Opposition web pages and social media platforms continue to publish reports about irregularities during the voting process, paying particular attention to stories of soldiers voting under the alleged supervision of the officers. Irregularities during the voting of the soldiers were one of the main problems almost in all post-Soviet elections in Armenia. 

The current elections are being held under changed electoral rules that were agreed as part of the electoral reform adopted in April 2020 and commended by the Venice Commission.

The major changes are: 1. The removal of highly controversial district seats and shifting to fully closed party lists; and 2. The introduction of tightened criminal and administrative sanctions for electoral violations.

The amendments were preceded by two other significant reforms, municipal election reform and amendments to the Law on Political Parties.

To gain seats in parliament, parties need to receive a minimum of 5% of the votes. As for alliances, which consist of two or more party coalitions, need to receive a minimum of 7% of the votes.

A government forms if a party or an alliance gains 47% of the votes. If no political force gains 47%, then a maximum of three parties or alliances can unite and form a coalition government.

If a government is not formed within six days, a run-off round between the top two parties must be held 28 days after the first election.

A minimum of three political groups must enter parliament, regardless of the performance of the third-best performing party or alliance. The party that wins the run-off will be given the additional seats required for a 54% majority, with all seats allocated in the first round preserved.

Seats in the Parliament are allocated to parties using their national share of the vote. Four seats are reserved for national minorities (Assyrians, Kurds, Russians and Yazidis) with parties having separate lists for the four groups.

A gender quota requires any top section of a party list to include at least 30% of candidates of each gender.

If a party receives a majority of the vote but wins less than 54% of the seats, they will be awarded additional seats to give them 54% of the total. If one party wins over two-thirds of the seats, the losing parties which made it over the threshold will be given extra seats reducing the share of seats of the winning party to two-thirds.

A picture from Tavush province of Armenia. Located northeast of Armenia and bordered by Georgia from the north and Azerbaijan from the east. Constituency 37, polling station N 15 seems to be very active.

The Armenian elections are being closely followed by the diaspora all over the world. The Armenian diaspora in Georgia is a case in point. The following from Arnold Stepanian, Chairman of the Public Movement Multinational Georgia, in Tbilisi.

The Armenian community in Georgia is closely following the ongoing electoral process in Armenia with great interest. The sympathies vary, reflecting trends in Armenia itself, with some supporting the political movement of  Nikol Pashinyan, while there are others supporting the parties of the former presidents.  Those supporting the second President, Robert Kocharyan, mainly represent a group of people seeking revenge over the Karabakh issue.

The most active part of the Armenian community mostly from the Samtskhe-Javakheti region and Tbilisi, and who have double citizenship have left for Armenia a few days ago in order to get engaged in a pre-election campaign in support of the candidates as well as to cast their votes.