YEREVAN, MAY 5, ARMENPRESS. Armenian political parties of Lebanon have nominated 8 candidates for the upcoming May 6 parliamentary elections in Lebanon.

Aztag Daily editor-in-chief Shahan Gantaharyan told ARMENPRESS that the ARF (Dashnaktsutyun) has nominated 4 candidates, the Armenian Democratic Liberal Party (Ramgavar) has nominated 3 candidates and the Social Democrat Hunchakian Party has nominated 1 candidate.

“This year for the first time Lebanese citizens living abroad were enabled to take part in the vote. Lebanese-Armenians living in different countries can also have active participation,” he said.

Gantaharyan says there are Armenians who have been nominated by other parties also. He says that Lebanon is a country built on a community system, therefore communities, i.e. national minorities, all have certain number of seats in the parliament and the government. The Armenian community has 6 seats.

The Armenian parties have an agreement that in the event of being elected the ethnic Armenian lawmakers will display concord in issues relating to the Armenian community and Armenia-Lebanon relations.

More than 10 parties are running for office in the parliamentary elections in Lebanon. The Lebanese parliament has 128 seats.

ENGLISH: Editor/Translator - Stepan Kocharyan