Snap parliamentary elections were held in Armenia on 20 June 2021. The elections had initially been scheduled for 9 December 2023, but were called earlier due to a political crisis following the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh War and an alleged attempted coup in February 2021.
Nikol Pashinyan, who had served as prime minister since 2018, resigned in April 2021 and subsequently the seventh National Assembly was dissolved on 10 May. Pashinyan continued to serve as acting prime minister until the elections were held. Following the election, Pashinyan's Civil Contract party received 54% of the vote and won 71 seats, a majority in the 107-seat parliament. The opposition Armenia Alliance, finished second with 29 seats, while the I Have Honor Alliance won 7 seats. No other party or alliance surpassed the electoral threshold required to win a seat. The opposition claimed there had been electoral fraud during the elections, while the OSCE assessed the election as meeting international standards and described it as; "marred by increasingly inflammatory rhetoric" but was "positive overall."
Background.
After six weeks of war with Azerbaijan, on 9 November 2020 prime minister Nikol Pashinyan, president of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and Russian president Vladimir Putin reached and signed a ceasefire agreement. Following the announcement of this deal, violent protests erupted in Yerevan. The National Assembly was stormed and its speaker Ararat Mirzoyan was beaten by an angry mob.
Pashinyan faced continuous calls for his resignation and mass rallies calling for him to step down. On 25 February 2021 the Chief of the General Staff of the Armenian Armed Forces Onik Gasparyan and more than 40 other top-ranking generals demanded Pashinyan's resignation, which Pashinyan described as a coup attempt, causing a political crisis that ended with Gasparyan's dismissal.
On 25 April 2021 Pashinyan announced his formal resignation, prompting the dissolution of the National Assembly and the call for snap elections on 20 June of that year.
Electoral system.
The members of the unicameral National Assembly were elected by party-list proportional representation. The number of seats was set at a minimum of 101, which could rise when allocation of additional seats is required. Seats were allocated using the d'Hondt method with an election threshold of 5% for parties and 7% for multi-party alliances. However, a minimum of three political groups would be awarded seats enter parliament regardless of the performance of the third-best performing party or alliance.
Four seats were reserved for national minorities (Assyrians, Kurds, Russians and Yazidis), with parties having separate lists for the four groups. A gender quota required any top section of a party list to include at least 33% candidates of each gender.
If a party received a majority of the vote but wins less than 54% of the seats, they would be awarded additional seats to give them 54% of the total. If one party won over two-thirds of the seats, the losing parties which passed the electoral threshold would be given extra seats reducing the share of seats of the winning party to two-thirds. If a government is not formed within six days of the preliminary results being released, a run-off round between the top two parties must be held on the 28th day. The party that won the run-off would be given the additional seats required for a 54% majority, with all seats allocated in the first round preserved.
Despite the COVID-19 pandemic, the Electoral Code did not provide for mail-in voting or early voting.
Schedule.
Participating parties and alliances were required to submit applications with all supporting documentation by 18:00 on 26 May. The electoral lists of the political parties and alliances of parties were registered by 31 May.
The official election campaign took place from 7 to 18 June.
Voting took place on 20 June from 8am to 8pm.
Participating political forces.
Four alliances and 23 parties submitted documents to the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) in order to register for the elections. This is a significant increase in the number of parties competing, as only nine parties and two alliances had competed in the parliamentary elections held two years earlier.
Several of the parties and all of the alliances were established in 2020 or 2021, following Armenia's defeat in the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war. In total, four alliances and 23 parties participated in the election.
Notes:
Declined participation or failed to register.
The Christian-Democratic Rebirth Party decided to withdraw its application to participate in the elections as an independent entity; instead the party participated as a part of the Shirinyan-Babajanyan Alliance of Democrats.
On 21 April, the Free Democrats confirmed they would participate in the elections, but ultimately, failed to register.
On 7 June leader of the Armenian Eagles Unified Armenia Party, Khachik Asryan, said that his party is terminating their election campaign and won't participate in elections. He called to cancel elections at large until the border regions of Armenia are liberated from Azerbaijani occupation.
The Democratic Way Party boycotted the election, claiming the election would be rigged.
The Democratic Consolidation Party did not participate in the elections stating that the threat of war should be a more serious concern to Armenia.
The Heritage party decided not to participate to prevent the reelection of Nikol Pashinyan.
Endorsements.
 ;templatestyles src="Endorsements box/styles.css"/ ;Armenian National Congress
 ;templatestyles src="Endorsements box/styles.css"/ ;Armenia Alliance
 ;templatestyles src="Endorsements box/styles.css"/ ;I Have Honor Alliance
 ;templatestyles src="Endorsements box/styles.css"/ ;Bright Armenia
 ;templatestyles src="Endorsements box/styles.css"/ ;European Party of Armenia
Conduct.
Eight monitoring missions, including from the OSCE/ODIHR and the CIS registered to observe the elections. A total of 250 short-term observers arrived from the ODHIR and 70 observers from various CIS countries, monitored the elections.
There were 8 monitoring missions in the 2018 parliamentary elections and 6 missions in the 2017 parliamentary elections.
Results.
In the evening of 20 June Tigran Mukuchyan, head of the Central Electoral Commission, announced the preliminary results; Pashinyan's Civil Contract party was leading with 58.5 percent of the vote and 72 seats of the National Assembly, 16 less than in 2018, while former president Robert Kocharyan's Armenia Alliance had 18.8 percent with 27 seats. The third political force was I Have Honor Alliance, with 5.23 percent and 6 seats.
Acting prime minister Nikol Pashinyan claimed victory in the snap election but moments later Kocharyan's alliance rejected the outcome, saying it would not recognize the results until alleged voting irregularities were addressed. Meanwhile, Tigran Mukuchyan stated "On the whole, the election was conducted in accordance with the country's legislation."
President Armen Sarkissian called on his compatriots to remain peaceful, because it would be unacceptable to "overstep political and moral boundaries, escalate the situation and foment hatred and enmity".
On 21 June the Central Electoral Commission confirmed the results.
Amid speculation that the elected Armenia Alliance deputies would not accept the position in an attempt to boycott parliament, on 22 June Kocharyan stated in an interview that he believed they should accept it but "I don't see myself in the parliament because I am more of an executive". At the same time, he affirmed that the alliance would soon submit to the Constitutional Court a report proving the existence of violations of the electoral procedure. He also acknowledged that the cause of his defeat could be the lack of work during the campaign in rural areas.
References.
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