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Pashinian's 'My Step' Alliance Seen Leading In Armenia's Parliamentary Elections

By RFE/RL's Armenian Service December 09, 2018

YEREVAN – Early results in Armenia's snap parliamentary elections indicate that acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian's My Step alliance is leading with more than 60 percent of the vote, election officials say.

Results from some 10 percent of polling stations show that the alliance's closest rival is the Prosperous Armenia Party of wealthy businessman Gagik Tsarukian, which has received 10.1 percent of the vote so far.

The final results of the December 9 vote are expected within the next 24 hours.

The Central Election Commission said that, according to preliminary data, turnout was 48.6 percent, some 12 percent lower than the previous parliamentary elections in April 2017.

The elections took place nine months after hundreds of thousands of people took to the streets in protests that led to a peaceful change of government and ignited new hopes of more democratic rule.

"After the elections, we will be developing Armenian democracy and make an economic revolution happen," Pashinian told reporters after casting his ballot.

"We have already achieved our main goal: to hold truly free, transparent, democratic elections," Pashinian said. "For the future, our main goal is to strengthen democracy in Armenia at the institutional level."

It was Pashinian, a former anticorruption journalist, who led the demonstrations that forced long-entrenched leader Serzh Sarkisian to step down from office.

Pashinian was eventually elected to the prime minister's post, although the Republican Party (HHK) maintained its majority in parliament.

Pashinian announced in October that he was resigning from the post in order to dissolve parliament and force early elections. He has continued to perform his prime-ministerial duties until a new parliament and prime minister are elected.

Pashinian pushed for early parliamentary elections following his bloc's landslide victory in the mayoral race in the capital, Yerevan, in a bid to unseat the HHK.

The election saw the HHK and nine other political parties and alliances vying for seats in the 101-member National Assembly.

The list of candidates of the HHK is headed by former Defense Minister Vigen Sarkisian, who urged Armenians to "get out and vote."

"I expect that, by the end of the day, we will have a more consolidated society," he said after voting in the Armenian capitol.

"I voted today for an Armenia where no one will ever allow the idea that society can be divided into whites and blacks. Because this would lead to the formation of an internal enemy, and the internal enemy in a besieged fortress is the worst that can happen."

Vigen Sarkisian is no relation to Serzh Sarkisian, who served 10 years as president before assuming the prime minister's post in an effort to remain in power. Serzh Sarkisian is not running in the election.

A Gallup poll conducted between December 1-4 among 1,100 voters put the My Step Alliance well ahead of all other parties with 69.4 percent.

No other party broke the 6 percent level, with the Republican Party at around 1.3 percent support.

Armenia has traditionally been a close ally of Russia, although Pashinian has spoken of desires to also increase the South Caucasus nation's ties with the United States and Europe.

With reporting by RFE/RL's Alan Crosby and Siranuysh Gevorgyan of RFE/RL's Armenian Service

Source: https://www.rferl.org/a/armenian-elections-pashinian -my-step-sarkisian-hhk/29645721.html

Copyright (c) 2018. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.