Elections

Sunday's parliamentary elections in Armenia are hotly contested, and the electorate is actively engaged in the campaigning. But the election is likely to lead to further uncertainty and continued instability argues Benyamin Poghosyan in this op-ed.

2,581,093 voters are eligible to vote in Armenia's early parliamentary elections being held on 20 June. This was announced on Monday in Yerevan by the country's Central Elections Commission. The Central Elections Commission has also approved 26 parties and blocs to participate in the elections which some see more as a referendum on Nikol Pashinyan, his policies, his style of government, his strengths, and his weaknesses.

Once again, Mali is facing a serious political crisis. Nine months after a putsch organised by the military, the president and the prime minister of Mali’s transitional government, Bah Ndaw and Moctar Ouane, were arrested by the army on May 24

Ethiopia has delayed its national elections due to logistical reasons. Some opposition parties have also refused to take part and no vote will be held in the Tigray region. The election will be Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed's first major electoral test. 

Alliances are being formed between Armenian political parties ahead of the 20 June parliamentary elections. Whilst they all claim to want to oust the current prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, they are all also busy competing against each other. Despite this, the next Armenian government is likely to be a coalition government, argues Benyamin Poghosyan in this op-ed for commonspace.eu

Moldovan President Maia Sandu has dissolved the country's parliament and called snap elections for July 11, shortly after the Constitutional Court canceled a state of emergency that lawmakers had approved.

Georgia’s government and the majority of its opposition parties have signed an EU-brokered agreement to end the political crisis that has been ongoing since the country’s October-November parliamentary elections last year. The President of the European Council, Charles Michel, was in Tbilisi to meet with the leaders and parties that signed his proposal.

With Armenia's snap parliamentary elections coming up in June, a lot of actors are looking at the country's domestic politics, but no one more closely than Moscow. In this op-ed, originally published on KarabakhSpace.eu, Benyamin Poghosyan looks at what the presence of the former Armenian president, Robert Kocharyan, means for Pashinyan and Armenian-Russian relations.