Armenia holds parliamentary election

Armenians are heading to polls today to elect a new parliament in the first ever nation-wide voting being held since the 2015 constitutional amendments.

All the polling stations across the country opened at 8:00 am local time.

Nine political forces, including four alliances and five parties, are running for polls. The political bloc Yelk (Way Out), led by the opposition MPs Nikol Pashinyan (Armenian National Congress) and Edmon Marukyan (founding leader of Bright Armenia Party) is proposing the slogan “Election, Victory Change”. "Heritage, Consolidation, Victory" is the slogan of the bloc led by Raffi Hovhannisyan, the opposition Heritage party’s leader, Vartan Oskanian, a former foreign minister, and Seyran Ohanyan, a former minister of defense (Ohanyan-Raffi-Oskanian). Tsarukyan Alliance, led by Gagik Tsarukyan, the Prosperous Armenia party's leader, is running for parliament with the slogan “Time for Changes and Development”. The political team representing the Armenian National Congress and the People’s Party of Armenia promises “Peace, Reconciliation and Goodneighborly Relations”. The ruling Republican Party of Armenia and its coalition partner, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation-Dashnaksutyun (ARF-D), stand for election as separate political teams, promising respectively “Security and Progress”, and “New Beginning, Fair Armenia”. The other parties vying for seats in the National Assembly are the Free Democrats (“We Can”), Armenian Renaissance (Vote for Change, Vote for Renaissance), and the Communist Party of Armenia (“Fatherland, Labor and Socialism”).

According to the parliamentary model established under the new Constitution, the president will formally remain the head of state. After the expiry of his term in office in 2018, the National Assembly, formed after the the 2017 election, will elect a new president, who later will appoint the prime minister representing the sustainable majority in parliament.

The sixth National Assembly of Armenia will have only proportional representation seats. Voters in each constituency will elect their representative from one of the political forces standing for election.

Thirty-one foreign media outlets (including BBC, the Associated Press, Reuters, Danish Broadcasting Corporation, Russian TV channels, etc) have applied to the Central Electoral Commission, requesting permission for covering the election.