Armenia’s Constitutional Court Upholds CEC Decision on June 7 Elections

YEREVAN — The Constitutional Court rejected the applications filed by seven political forces challenging the election results and upheld the Central Electoral Commission’s decision regarding the June 7 parliamentary elections.

The results of the June 7 parliamentary elections were challenged before the Constitutional Court by seven political forces, including the “Strong Armenia” and “Armenia” blocs, which entered parliament, as well as the Prosperous Armenia Party, which fell short of the electoral threshold by only a few dozen votes.

Since June 26, the Constitutional Court had been examining the applications of the seven political forces through oral proceedings. The hearing on the applications seeking to annul the parliamentary election results concluded on July 1, after which the court retired to the deliberation room.

According to the results of the June 7 National Assembly elections, three political forces entered parliament: the Civil Contract party, the Strong Armenia bloc and the Armenia bloc. The Prosperous Armenia Party came very close to crossing the electoral threshold.

Srbuhi Galyan, the representative of Civil Contract and Armenia’s minister of justice, who was recognized as a third party in the case and agreed with the Central Electoral Commission’s position, emphasized in her closing remarks that the applicants had not presented evidence proving that the alleged violations had actually occurred or that they had taken place on a scale capable of affecting the election results.

Civil Contract representatives had also spoken about vote-buying, adding that the vote-buying allegedly carried out by the opposition during the campaign fortunately did not affect the overall voting outcome.