Over 200 electoral commission members don’t show up at polling stations: Mukuchyan

YEREVAN, May 6. /ARKA/. The Chairman of Armenia’s Central Electoral Commission Tigran Mukuchyan said 218 out of 13,825 members of electoral commission didn’t show up at the polling stations. 

The parliamentary elections in Armenia are being held on Sunday in 1982 polling stations which will be open till 20:00. 

“Heads of the electoral commissions will ensure substitution,” he said at the press conference on Sunday.

Armenia's Central Electoral Commission (CEC) has registered eight political parties and one electoral bloc for the May 6 parliamentary elections, which will compete for 90 proportional seats in the National Assembly. Besides the three coalition parties - the Republican Party of Armenia, Bargavach Hayastan (Prosperous Armenia) and Orinats Yerkir, there also the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), Zharangutyun (Heritage), which has a combined list with Free Democrats, the Armenian National Congress (electoral bloc), the Democratic Party of Armenia, the Armenian Communist Party and the United Armenians party that are included in the ballots.

Total of 137 candidates will compete for 41 majoritarian seats in the parliament, and the two precincts will hold uncontested elections.

In compliance with the Electoral Code of Armenia parties should gain at least 5% of votes and a bloc- 7% to receive seats in the parliament. 

The parliamentary elections of the fifth convocation in Armenia will be monitored by 647 international observers of OSCE/ODIHR (258 observers), PACE (37), Inter-parliamentary Assembly of CIS (22), CIS observation mission (151), International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES) (3), as well as International Expert Center for Electoral Systems (ICES) (20), European Parliament (12), OSCE Parliamentary Assembly (69), SILBA international organization (16), representatives of the embassies accredited in Armenia (35), representatives of foreign Central Electoral Commissions (24).

CEC has already registered unprecedented number of local election observers – over 31,000. The biggest number of the observers will be from Pan-Armenian Youth Association (5555), and the least ( one observer) – from Rights Information Center. 

Receiving the data from the district electoral commissions CEC tells the state television and radio the preliminary results of the elections no later than 24 hours after voting. 

The final results of the elections are announced on the seventh day after the polls. 

According to the latest data, 2,482,238 constituents are included into the voter registry. -0-