Are you going, Armenia-2026? Will the Constitutional Court prevent the constitutional order?

Preface:

2026 The final results of the June 7 parliamentary elections in Armenia were announced on June 14. 19 parties or blocs submitted documents to participate in the elections (then one of them withdrew from the election), and 58.9 percent of the voters chose the composition of the parliament from those 18 political forces. According to the data published by the Central Electoral Commission (CEC), one party, “Civil Pact” (the ruling party), and two alliances of parties, “Strong Armenia” and “Armenia”, entered the National Assembly, receiving 49.75 percent, 23.27 percent, and 9.92 percent of the votes, respectively.

According to the results of a sociological survey carried out two weeks before the elections, on May 19-21, by MPG, a member of the Gallup International Association, 59.3% of the participants in the poll regarding their electoral preferences and willingness to participate in the parliamentary elections on June 7 declared that they would “definitely participate” in the vote, 28.8% said they would vote for the ruling “Civil Pact” party, and 14.9% for “Strong Armenia”. bloc, 12.1% for the “Armenia” bloc, 8.7% for the “Prosperous Armenia” party, 5.8% for the “Wings of Unity” party (the data are presented for those parties and blocs that, according to survey data, exceeded the minimum thresholds of parties and alliances, 4 and 8%, respectively.

The elections took place under the unprecedented influence of the geopolitical factor and many gross violations were recorded. Including grossly distorting election results. After the preliminary results were announced, the “Prosperous Armenia” party demanded a recount of votes in a number of precincts, as a result of which, thanks to the increased votes, that party overcame the transient threshold. The CEC annulled the results of three precincts, nullifying the more than 230 votes received by “Prosperous Armenia” in those precincts, again depriving that party of the right to enter the parliament. Then, when summarizing the final results, the CEC deliberately violated the imperative requirement of the Election Code and did not announce a re-voting in the precincts whose results were canceled and affected the election results.

The distribution of seats in the parliament was grossly distorted, both qualitatively (one of the opposition parties, the “Prosperous Armenia” party, did not enter the parliament), and quantitatively (thanks to this, the ruling party received additional seats, overcame 3/5 of the seats in the parliament, which enables the ruling power to make changes in the constitutional laws and appoint people it wants to some important positions without the support of the opposition). It is nothing but the overthrow of the constitutional order formed through elections in the country. It will be shown below that the statement of the CEC, which “explains” the decision not to re-vote in the three election precincts, is an attempt to mislead people and cover up the illegal and unconstitutional action, referring to the Venice Commission and the Constitutional Court.

7 political forces participating in the election appealed to the Constitutional Court, demanding the annulment of the results of the June 7 parliamentary elections.

After the restoration of independence, the only possibility to prevent this unprecedented phenomenon in the history of Armenia – the attempt to overthrow the constitutional order – is the decision of the Constitutional Court to cancel the elections. 

The CEC is a tool for overthrowing the constitutional order

It is clear that the results of the public opinion polls accurately reflected the percentage of voters participating in the elections (a little less than 60 percent), which is a high indicator for parliamentary elections.

Unfortunately, the encouraging facts are limited to this. The predicted picture of the formation of the Parliament is fundamentally different from the results published by the CEC, not only from the point of view of the distribution of seats of the parties in the National Assembly, but also from the point of view of the quality of the composition. It was predicted that the ruling party and four opposition parties and alliances would enter the parliament, but in reality the ruling party and two opposition alliances entered the parliament.

But the main problem is not that the CEC announced 73 percent more votes than predicted in favor of the ruling party, or that, according to the Central Electoral Commission, the “Prosperous Armenia” party received more than 2 times and the “Wings of Unity” party received 2.5 times less votes than the public opinion polls predicted.

It may seem paradoxical, but the meaning of these huge discrepancies is related to the thousandth percent of the index of another opposition party, “Prosperous Armenia”, which the CEC expelled from the National Assembly at the cost of gross, deliberate violations. The point is that according to the preliminary results of the elections, that party received 3.996 percent of the votes, while 4 percent was required to enter the parliament (that is, 0.004 percent was not enough).

After recounting the votes in some precincts, it was found that according to the protocols prepared in those precincts, the CEC “lost” more than 200 votes to “Prosperous Armenia” during the counting of the votes, and after their restoration, it became clear that this party also enters the parliament. But the adventures did not end there. It turned out that after restoring the “lost” votes and redistributing parliamentary seats in the National Assembly, the ruling party does not even get 3/5 of the mandates, which, according to the Constitution of Armenia, enables it to change the constitutional laws and appoint the people it wants to some important government positions without the consent of the opposition.

In order to provide this important tool to the ruling party, the CEC annulled the voting results of three polling stations and took more than 230 votes from the “Prosperous Armenia” party. After that, the percentage of votes of this party decreased again (3.9893), the number of parties that entered the parliament was reduced from 4 to 3, and after the redistribution of seats in the parliament, the ruling party received more than 3/5 of the seats. Article 95 of the Election Code defines:

“1. The Central Electoral Commission summarizes the results of the elections in the manner and within the time limits set by Article 75 of this Code and adopts any of the following decisions.

1) On the election of the National Assembly and the distribution of mandates,

2) About the preliminary distribution of the mandates of the deputies of the National Assembly,

3) on appointing double voting in separate election precincts,

4) On declaring the election of the National Assembly invalid and appointing a re-voting of the elections,

5) On invalidating the double voting of the National Assembly elections. In that case, the President of the Republic appoints a new regular election of the National Assembly.”

It is obvious from the first point of part 1 of this article that the results of the elections are the election to the National Assembly and the distribution of mandates. Since the annulment of the results of the three precincts changed the distribution of mandates and therefore affected the results of the elections, there were both qualitative (instead of four parties and alliances to three) and quantitative (distribution of mandates among political forces) changes in the election results, as a result of which the ruling party received additional powers.

Article 101 of the Electoral Code requires mandatory re-voting in those polling stations where the annulment of the results affected the results of the elections.

“Article 101. Designating a double vote for the National Assembly elections, declaring the results of the elections invalid

1. If such violations of this Code occurred during the elections that could affect the results of the elections, the Central Electoral Commission makes a decision to hold a repeat vote in separate electoral precincts, where it is possible to eliminate the consequences of these violations by such means. If it is not possible to eliminate these violations by such means, then the election of the National Assembly is declared invalid and a second vote of the National Assembly elections is scheduled.”

It is clear that the Electoral Code unconditionally and without any additional condition imposes a re-voting in the electoral precincts in which the voting results were annulled, and this affected the election results. The CEC, however, refused to announce a double vote in the mentioned three polling stations, deliberately violating the Election Code and grossly distorting the election results.

The CEC explains the refusal to hold a double vote (the results of the voting in 3 precincts by the CEC of the Republic of Armenia from invalidation with the unfounded reference to some comments of the Venice Commission and the Constitutional Court, in order to mislead people and cover up the illegal and unconstitutional action of overthrowing the constitutional order formed through elections.

7 parties and alliances that participated in the election appealed the actions of the Central Electoral Commission to the Constitutional Court, where the hearing of the issue was scheduled for June 26.

The essence of geopolitical conspiracies

Armenia is located in one of the epicenters of the geopolitical confrontation between Russia and the West for the formation of a new world order.

After the revolution in Armenia in 2018, as a result of which the current ruling party came to power, the foreign policy course of the country changed radically.

If before that it was balancing relations with Russia and the West, after the revolution the government adopted an obvious pro-Western direction. It had a dramatic impact on Armenia’s relations with Russia and the settlement process of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict under the leadership of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs (Russia, the United States and France).

That process, the settlement document of which provided for a referendum on the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh, was suspended, in 2020, the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh was subjected to Azerbaijani-Turkish military aggression, and in 2023, to ethnic cleansing, genocide, and the Minsk Group was forced to disband.

Azerbaijani military formations have occupied 240 square kilometers of the territory of Armenia, and the Armenian authorities have agreed to fulfill Azerbaijan’s demands: changes to the interstate border, changes to the country’s Constitution, etc. Armenian authorities are trying to find support in the West and have passed a law to start the process of joining the EU, although it is clear that Armenia is not ready in many ways and will not be ready for another few decades. In 2025, the United States joined the process of Westernization of Armenia.

It is obvious that in the situation created under the influence of the struggle for the new world order, the EU and the USA are interested in pushing Russia out of the South Caucasus, and in this regard, they are interested in the victory of the current authorities in the parliamentary elections, which unconditionally follow the instructions of their Western partners.

It is no coincidence that a few weeks before the elections, unprecedented events, not typical for the pre-election period, took place. The 8th European Political Community Summit was held in Armenia, during which EU leaders openly supported the ruling party, French President Macron participated in the party’s election campaign, US Vice President Vance expressed support for the ruling political force, and a few days before the elections, State Secretary M. Rubio changed the route of his visits, his plane landed in Yerevan for 45 minutes, and at the airport he signed documents with the Armenian foreign minister on the allocation of Armenian territory for the implementation of the TRIPP program, strategic partnership and the extraction of Armenia’s most important minerals and rare metals.

This was followed by Russian sanctions against Armenia, banning the export of Armenian fruits and vegetables and several other products to Russia. It is obvious that in such a difficult situation, the authorities of Armenia need a strong influence in the parliament, and for this they did not hesitate not only from the violent change of the composition of the Constitutional Court a few years ago, the arrest of more than 700 of their political rivals, including the leader of the leading opposition party Samvel Karapetyan, the initiation of groundless criminal cases, but also from the gross violations of laws and norms of the Constitution, which can lead to the overthrow of the constitutional order formed by parliamentary elections.

Was it necessary to appeal to the Constitutional Court, when it completely and illegally formed the current government?

Real political struggle requires the use of all tools. Moreover, in order to carry out this struggle in the international arena, it is necessary to use all domestic opportunities. It may seem that some people bring a serious counter-argument against these claims: “By appealing to the Constitutional Court the results of the elections and the Constitutional Court formed by political persecution, bribery, high pension proposals, and terrorism will be “legitimized” because, most likely, that body will confirm the election results.”

However, this is a false claim, which is the result of a very common dangerous phenomenon in Armenia. Often, some politicians use words, the meaning of which they do not know, to give weight to their words: political science, territorial integrity, legitimacy, etc. In connection with the latter, some also declare that if the opposition takes the parliamentary mandates, it will legitimize the government. However, those who make such “assertions” do not know that anyone cannot arbitrarily “interpret” professional terms, because they have their own definitions.

In particular, conditions and factors are defined for the legitimacy of the government. For example, according to D. In Bietheim’s monograph “The Legitimacy of Power”[1], power can be considered legitimate if the following three conditions are met and two factors are present:

conditions:

1. The activity must be carried out strictly in accordance with the established procedures (constitution, laws and popular rules),

2. Those rules should be considered mandatory by all, both the rulers and the ruled,

3. There should be no sign from the society that it radically disagrees with that regime.

–factors:

1. Elections and the existence of a multi-party system are mandatory factors, because only then can society express its principled agreement or disagreement with the existing government system.

2. Respect for constitutional regulations that reflect “on what terms society agrees to be governed.”

Can any reasonable person claim that any of these conditions and factors apply to taking parliamentary mandates or applying to the constitutional court? Exactly the opposite.

It is very easy to show with facts that the authorities of Armenia have violated all the conditions and factors from the very beginning and are not legitimate. They have been under pressure from the courts, including the Constitutional Court, for years, they have extorted the decisions they want from the acting parliament by blackmail and pressure, they have repeatedly violated the legislation, the masterpiece of which was the decision of the Central Election Commission, which led to the overthrow of the constitutional order, not to hold re-voting in three precincts. Mandatory requirement of the Electoral Code. Could there be a more flagrant violation of the first and second conditions?

An obvious fact of non-fulfillment of the third condition is the fact that only 30 percent of those who have the right to vote voted for the government.

Violation of the first factor is confirmed by the various and numerous violations in the parliamentary elections, the registration and participation of a significant number of fake (spoiler) “parties” in the elections.

Will the Constitutional Court “validate” the overthrow of the constitutional order?

The answer to this question depends on two factors: the ideas and positions of the CC members and the wording of the documents submitted to the court.

Regarding the members of the CC, the fact that two of them refused to participate in the discussion of the case is important. Although they presented a different justification, it is clear that the motive was that they understood that, regardless of the consequences of other violations, the results of the election were affected by the cancellation of the voting results in three electoral precincts, and by not ordering a double vote in them, the CEC deliberately violated the law of the country. And those who ratify such a decision put a cross on their professional reputation. Therefore, from the point of view of the decision of the CC, it is important whether the other members perceive it. At the same time, the fact that, according to Article 62 of the Constitutional Law on the Constitutional Court, the court adopts decisions by the majority of votes of the total number of judges is also important. Therefore, not participating in the examination of the case makes it difficult to make a decision.

And what decision can the CC make?

According to Article 77, Part 13 of the Constitutional Law on the Constitutional Court, the Constitutional Court shall adopt any of the following decisions in connection with the decision made as a result of the National Assembly elections:

1) Leave the decision adopted by the results of the National Assembly elections in force.

2) recognize as invalid the decision adopted by the results of the National Assembly elections and

a. invalidate the election results,

b. invalidate the results of the elections and establish the procedure for the distribution of mandates,

c. appoint a second round of elections.

Acceptance of either of these options depends on two circumstances:

– which factors influencing the election results was emphasized by the party who appealed to the court,

– how reliable does the court consider the arguments presented by that party?

Therefore, it is important to discuss which circumstances and which violations that party highlighted in the documents presented.

It is obvious that the violations are many and varied, but we should not forget that they can influence the court’s decision only when the magnitude of the influence is measurable. For example, the increase in pensions, in the absence of such a provision in the 2026 budget law, was intended to influence the voting results, but it is not possible to estimate how many voters voted with this factor in mind.

Meanwhile, the annulment of the voting results of the three election precincts related to the “Prosperous Armenia Party” without ordering a re-voting has clearly had measurable results. Therefore, it would be correct for the parties who applied to the court to focus on proving the validity of their claim based on that circumstance.

Conclusion

The analysis of the processes of preparation and holding of parliamentary elections, post-election events, as well as fierce geopolitical competition in the region shows that

1. The absence of institutionalized parties and traditions of political culture in the post-Soviet region during the period of escalation of geopolitical conflicts is fraught with very dangerous challenges for the countries of that region, because in practice there is no international control of the observance of international legal norms and principles due to the fact that the influential countries, which should guarantee the observance of these principles, themselves very often do not follow these principles to achieve their geopolitical goals.

2. In those countries, unprecedented violations of legislation, use of administrative resources, persecution of political rivals, “dirty” methods of struggle, etc. are observed in those countries, because there are no internal mechanisms of political culture that allow to restrain reckless and adventurous steps, as well as external control mechanisms.

3. The 2026 parliamentary elections in Armenia fully correspond to the trends described in points 1 and 2. It has come to the point that the Central Electoral Commission refused to fulfill the mandatory requirement of the Electoral Code regarding double voting in three precincts and qualitatively and quantitatively distorted the election results in favor of the ruling party.

4. The Constitution and the Electoral Code of Armenia (constitutional law) provide the last chance for a civilized solution to the situation related to the 2026 parliamentary elections. Armenia’s opposition parties are challenging the results of the elections in the Constitutional Court, and the court should annul the results of those elections.

Of course, it cannot be excluded that under the pressure of the authorities, the Constitutional Court, like the CEC, may also ignore the obvious facts, the norms of the Constitution, the Law on the Constitutional Court and the Electoral Code. However, it should be kept in mind that these elections and the parliament formed by their results will be illegal and illegitimate and will not only further destabilize the situation, but will also put the country in front of new and more difficult challenges.

1. In order to ensure an objective and sound discussion, the political forces that applied to the Constitutional Court to effectively implement the justification of their demand should build it on the illegality of the decision of the CEC regarding the “Prosperous Armenia” party to cancel the voting results in three precincts and not to hold a double vote and the case leading to the overthrow of the constitutional order.

 Tigran Torosyan

Doctor of Political Sciences,

Prospective studies and initiatives center

 Tigran Torosyan, elections-2026, Constitutional Court, NA elections, CP, power, electoral fraud, administrative resources, polls, Central Election Commission, “Prosperous Armenia”, double voting, illegality of CEC decision, overthrow of constitutional order, dangerous challenge, annulment, opposition, voting, legitimacy, Bitheim’s “Legitimacy of Power”, political culture, parties, Venice Commission, “Strong Armenia” bloc, “Armenia” bloc, geopolitics

[1] Beetham David․ (1991)․ The Legitimation of Power․ Palgrave Macmillan.

—