On 19 July, the leader of the “Armenia” opposition bloc Robert Kocharyan stated he would not take up his seat in Armenia’s new parliament and that his seat would be given to another member of his bloc. 

Kocharyan said in the statement that he had served as lawmaker, first in Nagorno-Karabakh and then in Armenia, but that by virtue of his character he has always been a person of executive power. “I am convinced that now it would be more correct to give up my parliamentary seat to a member of my team, each of whom, I am sure, will make a good deputy. By this step, I also express my accord with my colleagues, who conveyed to me the opinion that after the presidency of Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia, I should not be tempted by a parliament member’s mandate. In the end, my supporters voted for me as a candidate for prime minister,” Kocharyan wrote. At the same time, he said his refusal to take up the seat does not mean that he is quitting his political struggle. Kocharyan’s fellow party colleague Ishkhan Saghatelyan stated that the rest of the bloc’s candidates would enter the parliament.

On 16 July, the Armenian Constitutional Court rejected the opposition demands to overturn official results of the 20 June parliamentary elections which gave victory to the acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party. The opposition forces alleged serious irregularities which seriously affected the election outcome. They accused Pashinyan of abusing his government levers, bullying opposition activists, and resorting to “hate speech” during the election campaign and forcing military and security personnel to vote for his party. Opposition representatives presented what they called evidence of the alleged violations during court hearings on the appeals that began on 9 July and lasted for six days. The Constitutional Court also questioned representatives of the Central Election Commission, the Armenian government, and the Civil Contract party. They all dismissed the opposition allegations as baseless. The court’s refusal to cancel the vote results was announced by its chairman Arman Dilanyan. He said the ruling would be fully published in due course.