On 23 March, the parliamentary head of the ruling Armenian My Step party Lilit Makunts said that the party was planning to hold snap elections with a proportional system.
In order to achieve this goal, amendments to the electoral code are needed to switch to a full proportional system without preferential voting before the early elections scheduled for 20 June. She added that electoral code amendments imply rather large changes and that the changes must be realistic for the upcoming early elections.
The leader of the opposition Bright Armenia (LHK) party Edmon Marukyan has spoken against changing electoral laws before snap parliamentary elections. Speaking live on Facebook, Marukyan argued that the very announcement of the election date has considerably reduced political tensions in the country. But he said that the rules of the game should not be changed before these elections are held.
“To adopt new rules of the game means imperilling the announced election date, hence, deepening the crisis in the country,” he said. Marukyan described the new draft election code as “unelaborated,” claiming that holding elections under changed election laws will cast a shadow over the legitimacy of the vote. The opposition politician added, however, that Bright Armenia intends to participate in the early elections in any case.
The deputies from the Prosperous Armenia (BHK) opposition party were also against amending the election code. “The authorities had enough time for making amendments in the electoral code. In this pre-election period, the discussion of document to be subjected to important legislative changes is not expedient. We won’t enter [this] field of discussion,” stated Iveta Tonoyan from BHK. She also stressed however that BHK was ready to head to snap elections with any code, new or old.
The support for the amendments to the electoral code came from civil society organisations in the country. “The amendments are the amendments that the authorities’ political team has been talking about since the revolution that took place in 2018 and that are stated in the program of the government adopted in 2018. They are also part of the roadmap that [Prime Minister] Nikol Pashinyan presented in November 2020. Holding elections with an amended electoral code is the only way to solve the political crisis,” said the President of the Union of Informed Citizens NGO Daniel Ioannisyan. Asked if the authorities would manage to make amendments to the electoral code before elections, Ioannisyan said there is no problem with time limits.
Ioanisyan also commented on Marukyan’s objections, saying that they contradict what LHK said in 2018. “I don’t really understand the political party’s stance since it is essentially different from the stance it had in 2018. In 2018, the leader of the political party Edmon Marukyan happily stated that there is finally an opportunity to stop holding elections through the rating system. He needs to explain why the party has changed its position,” he emphasised.
Also, the Speaker of the National Assembly of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan suggested that the parliament back the initiative of BHK and LHK to lift martial law. Mirzoyan noted that as far as the political forces reached an arrangement on resolving the domestic political situation in the country by conduction of snap parliamentary elections it would be right not to wait for government’s initiative and tomorrow morning vote for lifting the martial law.
In the meantime, the council of the opposition Homeland Salvation Movement, which is still demanding Pashinyan’s resignation, decided to start a new wave of political actions, expanding the geographical scope of actions and the engagement of the population of the provinces and to declare the tent camp located on Demirchyan Street at the side entrance to the parliament building as the headquarters of the Movement in order to maintain public pressure and coordinate further actions of the Movement.
