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Armenian PM’s Party Wins Snap Parliamentary Election

Armenian PM’s Party Wins Snap Parliamentary Election
folder_openAsia-Pacific... access_time2 years ago
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By Staff, Agencies

Results released Monday showed that the party of Armenia’s acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan won snap parliamentary elections which he called to ease anger over a peace deal he signed with Azerbaijan.

With all precincts counted, Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party won 53.9 percent of the vote. A bloc led by former President Robert Kocharyan was in a distant second place with about 21 percent, the election commission said Monday.

A bloc affiliated with another former president came third with 5.2 percent, and another party had nearly 4 percent. Blocs need 7 percent to get into parliament and parties need 5 percent. However Armenia's laws allow a third party or bloc to get seats if only two political forces pass the threshold to get into parliament.

Pashinyan called the early election after months of protests demanding his resignation because of the peace deal that he signed to end six weeks of fighting with Azerbaijan over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

The agreement saw Azerbaijan reclaim control over large parts of Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding areas that had been held by Armenian forces for more than a quarter-century. Thousands of Armenians took to the streets in the capital of Yerevan to protest the deal as a betrayal of national interests.

Nagorno-Karabakh lies within Azerbaijan but had been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by the government in Yerevan since a separatist war ended in 1994, leaving the region and substantial surrounding territory in Armenian hands.

Hostilities flared in late September 2020, and the Azerbaijani military pushed deep into Nagorno-Karabakh and nearby areas in six weeks of fighting involving heavy artillery and drones that killed more than 6,000 people.

Pashinyan, who came to power after leading large street protests in 2018 that ousted his predecessor, defended the deal as a painful but necessary move that prevented Azerbaijan from overrunning the entire Nagorno-Karabakh region.

After calling the election, he stepped down from the premiership as required by law to allow the election to take place but remains the country’s leader as acting prime minister.

Sunday’s ballot involved 21 political parties and four electoral blocs. Despite the high emotions over the war defeat and the calls for Pashinyan to resign, election turnout was lukewarm - only 49 percent of eligible voters cast ballots.

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