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Armenia to hold parliamentary election tomorrow

01 April 2017 09:52 (UTC +04:00)

Saturday is election silence day in Armenia. Any campaigning by the political forces running for parliament in the country is banned from this day on until the end of voting, on Sunday at 8pm, news.am reported.

The election for the 6th convocation National Assembly of Armenia will be conducted on Sunday. On that day 2,009 election precincts will be open from 8am to 8pm, Armenia Time; there will be no voting abroad.

For the first time, the election will be held exclusively on a proportional system (on party lists). However, voting on so-called open lists will also be applied for the first time.

The voter has a choice: Either he/she can only vote for a political party (bloc), or, in addition, vote for one of the candidates nominated by this political force in the territorial constituency. In the first case, a ballot paper of the preferred political force should be put into the envelope without any notes. In the second case, on the reverse side of the bulletin of the preferred political force, it is necessary to put a "tick" in front of the name of one of the candidates nominated by her in the territorial constituency.

Five parties are participating in the parliamentary elections in Armenia: the ruling Republican Party of Armenia, the Armenian Revival Party, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, the Free Democrats Party and the Armenian Communist Party, as well as four electoral blocs: The Tsarukyan bloc, Ohanyan-Raffi-Oskanian bloc, Yelk bloc, and Armenian National Congress.

The name of President Serzh Sargsyan, who is the leader of the Republican Party, is not included in the lists. The party list is headed by Vigen Sargsyan, who was appointed Minister of Defense 4 months ago. The Armenian National Congress and the Ohanyan-Raffi-Oskanian bloc will form the main competition for the ruling party.

The Armenian National Congress is headed by the first president of Armenia Levon Ter-Petrosyan, and the People’s Party is headed by and Stepan Demirchyan, son of seaker Karen Demirchyan, who was killed in parliament in 1999. The main goal of this bloc was to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and normalize relations with Azerbaijan and Turkey.

Recent polls show that the Armenian National Congress can create problems for the government.

It is predicted that Tsarukyan can also create certain problems of the ruling party. This bloc unites in its ranks three or four small parties.