Opposition says Pashinyan sought to influence election outcome with premature victory claim

By Lia Avagyan

Strong Armenia alliance leader Samvel Karapetyan and Wings of Unity party leader Arman Tatoyan accused Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of acting illegally after he declared victory before the vote count in Armenia’s parliamentary election had been completed.

Pashinyan declared victory at Civil Contract’s campaign headquarters at around 2:10 a.m. on Monday and said his ruling party would form a single-party government. At the time, only about 15% of votes had been counted nationwide.

Speaking at a news conference at his home at around 3:00 a.m., Karapetyan described the election as “disgraceful” and accused the authorities of continuing violations after polls closed.

“You all saw over the past month what kind of persecution and violence we have been subjected to,” Karapetyan said. “Around 75 people from our team are currently under arrest, and more than 700 people have been detained.”

Karapetyan said the authorities had interrupted the vote count after seeing Civil Contract’s results decline.

“There has never been a case in world history when, during the count, they stop and say they will present the results at 9:00 a.m.,” he said. “The elections are not over yet. There are no final election results yet.”

Karapetyan said the authorities were claiming victory with only partial results, which he said mainly reflected rural areas. He said Civil Contract’s share began falling once results from cities started coming in.

He also alleged violations in Meghri after polls closed, saying soldiers were brought to a polling station around midnight to vote. He did not provide evidence for the claim.

Tatoyan also criticized Pashinyan’s declaration, saying in a Facebook post that the prime minister’s statement that Civil Contract had won and would form a government alone was unconstitutional and exceeded his powers.

“The head of government has no authority to declare his sole victory when only slightly more than 10% of the voting results have been counted,” Tatoyan wrote.

He said the results from Yerevan had not been properly summarized and that updates were changing irregularly, with figures rising and falling without clear frequency.

Tatoyan also criticized Pashinyan’s remarks about holding opposition leaders accountable, saying the prime minister had no such authority.

“This is a gross violation of the law,” Tatoyan wrote. “We consider Nikol Pashinyan’s statement to be an open illegal influence on the Central Electoral Commission aimed at affecting the election results, which is criminally punishable.”