Snap parliamentary elections over in Armenia

YEREVAN, June 20, /ARKA/.More than 2,000 polling stations that were opened across Armenia at 8 am today for early parliamentary elections closed at 8 pm.

According to the Central Electoral Commission (CEC), there are nearly 2.6 million people eligible to vote.

Twenty-one political parties and 4 electoral blocs are competing for the seats in the National Assembly, but 2 are considered the main candidates -the ruling Citizens’ Contract Party, led by acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, and the Hayastan (Armenia) alliance, led by former President Roberto Kocharyan.

The snap parliamentary elections were called by Nikol Pashinyan to resolve public anger over the peace agreement he signed in November last year with presidents of Russia and Azerbaijan to end the hostilities in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone as a result of which Azerbaijan gained control over part of Nagorno-Karabakh itself and the surrounding seven districts held by Armenian troops for more than a quarter of a century.

The polls were being watched by several international organizations, including the CIS Inter-parliamentary Assembly, the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (OSCE / ODIHR), and the International Organization of Francophonie.

The voter turnout as of 5 pm was about one million.  

The Prosecutor General's Office of Armenia, according to the latest data as of 13:00, launched investigations into 64 reports about vote breaches, 16 of which involved violation of the secrecy of voting, 16 - obstruction of the exercise of suffrage, 15 - voting more than once or instead of another person, 6 - giving and receiving an electoral bribe, including under aggravating circumstances. -0-