Election commission decision undermines electoral integrity in Armenia

#Democracy Watch - Over the past week, Armenia’s Central Electoral Commission (CEC) decided to invalidate the voting results from polling stations No. 12/13, 10/51, and 36/65, stating that significant electoral violations had been recorded which could have affected the outcome of the vote.

At the same time, a recount of the election results had begun at the request of the Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK). According to the preliminary election results, BHK was only a few dozen votes short of surpassing the 4 percent threshold required to enter parliament. As a result of the recount and the correction of technical errors, BHK’s vote total increased by 147 votes. In the polling stations whose results were later invalidated, BHK had received 222 votes, which were deducted after those results were annulled. This meant that, had repeat voting been organized in the polling stations where the CEC invalidated the results, Prosperous Armenia would, in all likelihood, have entered parliament.

The outcome would also determine the number of seats held by the ruling party in the new National Assembly. If BHK failed to enter parliament, the number of seats held by the Civil Contract Party would increase by three, giving the ruling party three-fifths of the seats in the National Assembly. This, in turn, would enable Civil Contract to make a number of appointments unilaterally.

Against this backdrop, nearly all political and public actors had a clear expectation that repeat voting would be organized in the three polling stations where the results had been invalidated. Such a decision also followed from Armenian legislation. Article 101 of the Electoral Code states:

“If violations of this Code have occurred during elections that could have affected the election results, the Central Electoral Commission shall adopt a decision to conduct repeat voting in individual polling stations if the consequences of those violations can thereby be remedied. If those consequences cannot be remedied in this manner, the National Assembly elections shall be declared invalid and repeat National Assembly elections shall be scheduled.”

In this case, it was evident that the outcome of repeat voting in the aforementioned polling stations could have had a significant impact on the overall election results. As already noted, what was at stake was whether one political force would enter parliament and whether another would or would not obtain three-fifths of the parliamentary seats.

Despite this, following the publication of the final election results, on the evening of June 14 the Central Electoral Commission decided not to organize repeat voting in the polling stations where the results had been invalidated, claiming that the invalidation of the results in these three polling stations did not affect the overall election outcome.

This is manifestly an unlawful and political decision. In practice, it deprives a political force that received sufficient electoral support of the opportunity to enter parliament, while artificially granting the ruling party three additional seats in clear violation of the law.

This decision immediately raises the most serious questions regarding the legitimacy of the elections. Over the past week, the authorities and various pro-government circles argued that Russia and political forces loyal to it in Armenia were deliberately attempting to delegitimize the election results. In this regard, it should be acknowledged that no external or domestic actor could have cast as great a shadow over these elections as the CEC’s own decision has done.

This is also the first case since the 2018 Velvet Revolution in which the integrity of the electoral process has been deliberately undermined. Against the backdrop of increasingly troubling developments in Armenia in recent years—where the authorities have disregarded the rule of law, brought independent institutions under their control, and politicized the justice system—it was often argued that Armenia nevertheless remained an electoral democracy because nationwide elections continued to be free and competitive.

Indeed, the respected V-Dem Institute has classified Armenia as an electoral democracy since 2021. According to V-Dem’s 2022 report, one of the reasons for Armenia’s transition from electoral authoritarianism to electoral democracy was that “there had been a significant improvement in the autonomy of election management bodies over the past ten years.”

Following the CEC’s decision of June 14, any discussion of the institution’s autonomy has become redundant. Consequently, this decision may also be reflected in Armenia’s standing in international democracy rankings. It endangers one of the principal achievements of 2018—the institution of free and fair elections—and public trust in that institution. Although the decision currently has only a limited impact on the election results, it establishes a dangerous precedent that could serve as the basis for more substantial electoral fraud in the future.

This situation also validates the concerns repeatedly voiced by civil society when Civil Contract party member and Member of Parliament Vahagn Hovakimyan, voting for himself, was elected by the National Assembly as Chairman of the Central Electoral Commission. The establishment of political control over independent institutions and their politicization by those in power typically produces precisely these kinds of negative consequences.

It is also important to note that, in this case—as with all recent anti-democratic developments—there is a clear need to distinguish the essential issue from secondary considerations. The nature of the Prosperous Armenia Party, which is evidently oligarchic, and its methods of operation, which may be subject to investigation by law enforcement authorities, are secondary matters. If that political force was permitted to participate in the elections, then its electoral results must be regulated in accordance with the legislation of the Republic of Armenia.

The most important issue in this situation is ensuring the integrity of the electoral process, safeguarding the principles of impartiality and autonomy on the part of the body administering the elections, and preventing the distortion of election results through clearly politically motivated decisions designed to serve the interests of a single political force. In this regard, all those actors who attempt to justify the violation of these fundamental principles by invoking secondary considerations are engaging in outright propaganda and contributing to the deepening of democratic backsliding in Armenia.

Democracy Watch is a joint initiative of CivilNet and the Regional Center for Democracy and Security.