On 31 May, Armenia’s Central Election Commission (CEC) announced that 26 parties and blocks would be participating at the elections scheduled for 20 June.
The CEC did not disqualify any of the political groups that submitted their lists of election candidates and other registration documents. The parties would need to win at least 5% of the vote to be represented in the National Assembly. The vote threshold for blocs is set at 7%. The CEC chairman, Tigran Mukuchyan, admitted that the record-high number of contenders will require additional expenditures on the conduct of the snap elections. He said that the commission would have to print millions of more ballots and ship them to 2,000 or so polling stations across the country to conduct the elections properly.
According to the latest national polls on the elections published on 22 May by the Armenian affiliation of the Gallup International Association, the ruling Civil Contract Party led by Armenia’s acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan was expected to win the majority of the seats for the country’s new legislation. The poll asked 800 Armenian residents a series of questions between May 18 and May 21, 2021, related to the ongoing border crisis and the country’s general political situation. According to the results of the poll only three parties/blocs would pass the electoral threshold, namely: the Civil Contract (24.8%), Armenia Alliance led by Robert Kocharyan (14.3%) and the Prosperous Armenia Party led by Gagik Tsarukyan (7%). It should be noted that 13.3% of the questioned refused to give an answer regarding their choice and 14.6% found it difficult to give an answer over their political preferences for the upcoming elections.
The results confirmed the trend in Armenia, that momentum is shifting away from Pashinyan’s Civil Contract Party, with Robert Kocharyan, who leads the Armenia Alliance with the Armenian Revolutionary Federation and Reviving Armenia Party, as the main beneficiary. All the other political parties, including Bright Armenia, which is currently the third-place party in parliament, are polling below the 5% threshold. If these results were reproduced on election day, a record 26.6% of all votes cast (more than one in four) would be disregarded.
A majority, 65% of the poll’s respondents, agreed that it was necessary to hold the early election, compared to 31% who disagreed. However, they were less optimistic that the election would be “free and transparent”; 50% felt that it would not be, while 45% felt that it would. Interestingly, 53% of respondents reported that they did not vote in the 2018 parliamentary election. Regarding the ongoing border crisis, 56% of respondents disagreed with the statement “It is secure to live in Armenia,” while 40.7% agreed. Another question was which entities Armenia could expect strategic-political support from in relation to the border tensions in Armenia’s Syunik and Gegharkunik regions. Multiple answers were allowed, and the results were as follows: Russia (38.3%), France (31.3%), US (23.8%), UN Security Council (11.4%), CSTO (7.2%).
