Caretaker Justice Minister sees no grounds to declare June 20 election results invalid

YEREVAN, JULY 8, ARMENPRESS. Caretaker Justice Minister of Armenia Rustam Badasyan says he doesn’t see any ground to declare the results of the June 20 snap parliamentary elections invalid.

Commenting on the reporters’ question about the opposition’s appeal to the Constitutional Court aimed at disputing the election results, Mr. Badasyan said he will be the representative of the Civil Contract party, which won the elections, in the Court.

“We just can do a very simple exercise: just look at the preliminary conclusions of the OSCE/ODIHR, read their assessment over the elections and compare with the assessments made for the elections of 2017 or before that. And we will see major differences between these assessments. The last elections were in accordance with the best democracy standards, have been held in a fair competition, all political forces had opportunities. And just open the report of the 2017 elections and look at the assessment, there is a reference to abuse of administrative resource, etc. Contrary to this, there are many positive assessments over these elections, all international organizations have highly appreciated both the 2018 and the 2021 elections”, the caretaker minister said.

He says everyone should congratulate one another on these elections as this is not an achievement of the leadership or the opposition, but that of all citizens.

Armenia held snap parliamentary elections on June 20. The Civil Contract party led by caretaker Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan declared a victory in the elections as it got over 50% of the votes. However, some political forces – “Armenia” alliance, “I Have The Honor” alliance, Zartonk and Hayots Hayrenik parties have appealed to the Constitutional Court to dispute the election results. The Court will examine the appeals on July 9.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan