Armenia's Constitutional Court to hear opposition election appeals on June 26

By Lia Avagyan

Armenia's Constitutional Court will examine appeals from seven political forces contesting the results of the June 7 parliamentary elections at a single hearing on June 26, the court announced.

The court accepted the cases at a procedural session on June 21 and merged them into a single proceeding on the grounds that they concern the same matter. The hearing is scheduled for 11 a.m. and will be held through oral proceedings. Judge Edgar Shatiryan was named rapporteur.

The seven forces are the Strong Armenia alliance, the Armenia alliance, Prosperous Armenia, Wings of Unity, Democracy, Law and Discipline, the New Force reformist party, and the ‘For the Republic Alliance’ party. All are challenging the Central Electoral Commission's June 14 decision certifying the results of the June 7 vote.

Under the law on the Constitutional Court, the court must rule within 15 days of an application being registered. It can either uphold the commission's decision or strike it down. If it invalidates the results, the law gives it three options: declare the results void, declare them void and set a new distribution of mandates, or order a second round.

Three forces crossed the threshold to enter parliament on June 7: Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's ruling Civil Contract, the Strong Armenia alliance led by Russian-Armenian businessman Samvel Karapetyan, and the Armenia alliance headed by former president Robert Kocharyan. Prosperous Armenia, led by Gagik Tsarukyan, fell just short of the 4 percent threshold for parties.

Prosperous Armenia's narrow miss has been at the center of the recount dispute. After the party requested a recount, having trailed the threshold by a few dozen votes, the correction of technical errors added 147 votes to its tally. In precincts where the commission annulled the results, the party had received 222 votes that were struck from the count — raising the prospect that, had a revote been held in those precincts, Prosperous Armenia could have crossed the threshold.