Narek Karapetyan: Armenian opposition faces difficult and unfair  fight

ArmInfo.  The Armenian opposition, having entered parliament, faces a difficult and unfair fight. This opinion was expressed on his Facebook page by Narek Karapetyan, a board member of the "Strong Armenia" bloc, in response to the Central Electoral Commission's announcement of the final results of the parliamentary elections held in the country on June 7.

The "Strong Armenia" board member said that whenever he gave  interviews to foreign media, he always said that Armenia is a  historically democratic country. "I said this so as not to tarnish my  country's reputation in the eyes of foreigners. Even after numerous  illegal actions against us, we claimed our country was 'democratic,'"  Karapetyan emphasized.

However, as the bloc's board member pointed out, on June 14, the  force that had entered the National Assembly through a popular vote,  and which could have helped other opposition forces that had entered  parliament fight against the "Constitution of Azerbaijani President  Ilham Aliyev" and his programs, was simply removed and barred from  parliament without explanation, despite a court ruling ordering a  rerun of the vote at polling stations where the results of the  citizens' votes had previously been annulled. "It turns out that the  entire burden of the struggle remains on us. Do we have the right to  give in? No. It will be difficult, it will be unfair, but even  dictators like him have been removed." "We will defeat the dictator  of a small group who has lost his soul!" Karapetyan concluded.

It should be noted that on June 14, Central Election Commission  Chairman Vahagn Hovakimyan presented the final results of the  parliamentary elections. According to him, voter turnout was 58.9%,  or 1,476,769 citizens. The Civil Contract Party won seats in the  Armenian parliament with 49.7456% of the vote, Samvel Karapetyan's  Strong Armenia bloc with 23.2710%, and second president Robert  Kocharyan's Armenia bloc with 9.9231%. Gagik Tsarukyan's Prosperous  Armenia Party failed to pass the 4% parliamentary threshold following  a recount, receiving only 3.9893%.

Tsarukyan's party failed to pass the threshold after the Central  Election Commission annulled the results of the votes at three  polling stations where Tsarukyan's party received more than 200  votes. During the meeting, Hovakimyan assured that the annulment of  the voting results at these polling stations did not affect the  election results and refused to organize a re-vote at the polling  stations. Thus, according to Hovakimyan, the mandates were  distributed as follows: Pashinyan's party received 64 mandates and a  constitutional majority of 3/5 in parliament. Karpetyan's bloc  received 29 mandates, and Kocharyan's bloc received 12 mandates.