The national elections are over. Today, the chairman of the Central Electoral Commission, Vahagn Hovakimyan, announced at the press conference he called that at the moment they still do not know for sure whether 3 or 4 forces will enter the parliament. In the morning, however, it was mentioned that CP, “Strong Armenia”, “Armenia” alliance and PAP have entered the parliament. But during the press conference, the Chairman of the CEC expressed doubts about the transition of the PAP, saying that for the distribution of mandates, they should understand how many forces will transition to the parliament.

Along with all this, various public and political figures declare that the opposition should not take the mandates and fight to appeal the election results.

Speaking about the parliamentary elections and their results, political scientist Hrant Mikayelyan observed the political processes on several levels.

According to him, from the point of view of a purely political process, these elections cannot solve the problems that exist in the country and neutralize the challenges facing Armenia today, even theoretically.

“Secondly, in order to consider elections free and fair, that election must have many elements and not many elements, therefore, I cannot consider these elections free and fair. The elections were rigged, deviated, if we consider the results of the elections, also with the use of administrative resources, this result was clear after the first few polling stations. The fact that Pashinyan declared himself the winner early, before finishing the calculation, this happens very often. First of all, it is very important for him to get legitimacy, he also wants to gain time for the people to come to terms with it,” said Hrant Mikayelyan in a conversation with 168.am.

In his opinion, there is nothing to be surprised that Nikol Pashinyan declared himself the winner, this could become a problem when the final election result, which would be recorded by the CEC, showed the opposite or at least the possibility of the opposite, but at the moment there is no such thing.

“Another thing that at the moment, apart from the use of administrative resources and other circumstances, the informational and legal terror that has reigned in our country for the last year, the most extraordinary thing at the moment is that the Central Electoral Commission, which had waited 24 hours to publish the results, published them and suddenly in the end PAP did not have enough 50 votes to enter the parliament. This is really a separate subject of study,” the political scientist added.

Regarding the refusal of mandates by the opposition and the possible street struggle, Hrant Mikayelyan noted that the refusal of mandates by the opposition may not always be the right solution.
“In many cases, this method cannot solve the problems, in this case the leaders of the opposition must make a decision, because the people expect a reaction and action from them.

I myself do not see a political consequence in the steps that, if, for example, the opposition refuses the mandates, the parliament can be paralyzed. It is more difficult to predict individual people’s decisions than individual political process. Considering the fact that today Pashinyan has support from outside, I think that any street struggle by the opposition will be suppressed and stopped. At the moment, Pashinyan controls the entire administrative resource, for example, he can arrest several hundred people on the spot, it’s not like he can limit himself,” emphasized Hrant Mikayelyan.

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