Referendum 2020: Campaign for constitutional reforms gets under way

The campaign for the April 5 constitutional referendum is officially kicking off on Monday, February 17.

The pre-electoral race will run through April 3 to enable the political forces, individual politicians and civil society activists backing, or opposing to, the proposed reforms to voice their ideas and justifications to the draft amendments to the country’s organic law.

The “Yes” campaign headquarters, which has already formed, is led by Minister of Territorial Administration and Infrastructures Suren Papikyan (who is also the leader of the ruling Civil Contract party).

None of the parliamentary political forces have joined in an opposing camp. The Prosperous Armenia and Bright Armenia parties said they will be privy to the referendum process.

The deadline for the National Assembly members to submit their documents for a ″No″ campaign is 6:00 February 19. A civic group composed of at least 50 individual citizens has a chance to apply to the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) until late Tuesday to push ahead with a campaign protesting against the proposed reforms.

As for the extra-parliamentary political parties, the former ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) is not joining the process either. In a statement last week, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation-Dashnaksutyun (ARF-D) called upon the voters in Armenia to ignore the upcoming referendum, citing ″unlawful actions″ and ″adventurism″ behind the authorities' intention. Also last week, several  lawyers and human rights activists expressed a desire to join in a campaign protesting the reforms, inviting professional circles to join their debates to consider the entire draft package.

In a bill submitted on February 6, Vahagn Hovakimyan of the ruling My Step faction in parliament proposed amendmentst to Article 213 of the Constitution to terminate authority of seven out of the nine judges of the high court. The National Assembly failed to pass the proposal in the first reading but backed a plan for a referendum.

The upcoming constitutional referendum is the fourth attempt to amend Armenia’s 1995 Constitution. Reforms over the past 25-year period were initiated in 2003, 2005 and 2015. Only the 2003 referendum had a negative outcome.

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