Ruling Republican Party In Armenia Set To Win Election; Vote Total Near 50%

RFE/RL April 02, 2017

YEREVAN – Official results indicate that President Serzh Sarkisian's ruling Republican Party of Armenia will be the winner of the April 2 parliamentary election, with the party's vote total hovering just around the 50 percent level.

The Central Election Commission early on April 3 said that, with votes counted from 50.4 percent of precincts, the Republican Party was ahead of the center-right Tsarukian Alliance led by pro-Russia tycoon Gagik Tsarukian by a vote of 50.43 to 28.29 percent.

The Republican Party's vote total has been slipping from about 55 percent after the initial results were announced with 18 percent of the vote counted.

The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF-Dashnaktsutyun), a nationalist party, had 6.88 percent of the vote and is set to enter parliament.

"According to the early election results, the Republican Party has every chance of forming the new government," party spokesman Eduard Sharmazanov told a news conference on April 3.

Turnout was 60.86 percent, the election commission said.

"We can announce that it is a victory," Republican Party Deputy Chairman Armen Ashotyan told a news briefing after earlier after exit polls pointed to the party's victory.

An exit poll by Baltic Surveys/The Gallup Organization shortly after polls closed, put RPA at 46 percent, with Tsarukian's Alliance at 25 percent, and the ARF at 5 percent.

The Tsarukian alliance and the ARF are potential coalition partners for Sarkisian's Republican Party if it does not win enough votes to form a government on its own.

"These elections are a victory for the public and all political forces because they passed in an atmosphere of implementing reforms aimed at building a more democratic Armenia," he said.

Nine parties and alliances were seeking seats in parliament in a campaign that focused mostly on the economic difficulties in the South Caucasus nation of 3 million.

Under constitutional changes approved in a 2015 referendum, the Armenian prime minister's office will become more powerful while the presidency is to become a largely ceremonial post elected by parliament.

Those changes are due to take place when Sarkisian's second and final term ends in 2018. Critics charge that they were designed to allow him to stay in power beyond the presidency's two-term limit.

Sarkisian denies that. But if the ruling party wins enough votes to control a parliamentary majority, either alone or in a coalition, he could continue to exercise executive power as prime minister.

He also could maintain clout by staying on as leader of his party, or he could exert influence through a handpicked successor.

Of the other eight parties or political blocs contesting the election, the Republican Party's chief challenger is the Tsarukian Alliance.

"Everything now depends on our people," Tsakurian said after casting his ballot in his native village of Arinj north of Yerevan. "They are the ones who decide," he added.

Before breaking away and branding itself as an opposition force, Tsarukian had been a coalition partner of the Republican Party.

It was not clear ahead of the election whether Tsarukian would be willing to form a coalition again with Sarkisian's party if his party did not receive enough votes to govern on its own.

The Armenian Revolutionary Federation, a smaller party currently in the ruling coalition with the Republicans, could help Sarkisian's party form a majority coalition if Tsarukian is unwilling to do so.

To win parliamentary seats, a party must win at least 5 percent of the vote and an alliance of parties must win at least 7 percent.

The right-wing conservative ORO Alliance, a bloc formed by three former cabinet ministers, could clear the threshold and win parliamentary seats.

That alliance takes an even harder line than Sarkisian's Republicans on negotiations with Baku toward a settlement on the long-running conflict over Azerbaijan's breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Days ahead of the vote, the U.S. Embassy in Yerevan issued a joint statement with the European Union, Germany, and the United Kingdom expressing concerns about allegations of irregularities since the campaign formally began on March 5.

The March 29 statement said diplomats were "aware of and concerned by" what it said were allegations of "voter intimidation, attempts to buy votes, and the systemic use of administrative resources to aid certain competing parties."

On election day, a reporter with RFE/RL's Armenian Service was attacked in Yerevan's Kond neighborhood after investigating allegations of vote-buying at a local campaign office of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK).

Another female reporter was also attacked outside the HHK office in Kond when she started filming people visiting it.

The Prosecutor General's Office said more than 220 criminal allegations of voter fraud are under investigation and that it had reports of significant problems with new voter identity devices that failed to recognize hundreds of voters, including the president.

Political analysts say that's because public anger over Armenia's economic problems is even stronger now than in 2015, when thousands of demonstrators blocked a central boulevard in Yerevan to protest planned electricity-price hikes.

For many, law wages, high inflation, joblessness, and corruption have eclipsed the question of whether Armenia should remain within the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union or seek closer integration with Europe.

Russian weapons deliveries to Baku had been the topic of heated debate after an escalation of the conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh last year.

But in the parliamentary campaign, most political forces steered clear of those issues and the question of whether Armenia is more secure with Russia as its ally.

With reporting by RFE/RL correspondent Ron Synovitz in Prague, Suren Musayelyan in Yerevan, AP, and Reuters

Source: http://www.rferl.org/a/armenian-vote-parliament- sarkisian-tsarukian/28404992.html

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