How the World Saw Armenia’s Elections

By Ani Paitjan

Parliamentary elections took place in Armenia on December 9. My Step Alliance, led by Acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, won in a landslide with 70 percent of the vote. More than 70 foreign journalist from 40 international media outlets covered the elections.

Here is an overview of the international media coverage of Armenia’s parliamentary elections.

BBC was one of the first international media to have released an article with the title: “Armenia election: PM Nikol Pashinyan wins by landslide.” The outlet said Pashinyan’s party won a “convincing victory.”

Three parties will enter Armenia’s new parliament: My Step Alliance, Prosperous Armenia and Bright Armenia. BBC News defined each of the parties as centrist, moderate and liberal pro-Western, respectively.

The media stressed the fact that following the elections, Pashinyan hopes to "step up co-operation with the United States and European Union.”

BBC also mentioned that former ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA), lost in the elections. They had 4.7 percent of the vote, which did not meet the 5 percent minimum that each party needed to enter the 101-seat National Assembly. BBC said that leaders of the RPA accused Pashinyan of trying to turn Armenia into 1930s Germany, and of becoming a Hitler figure. His critics say his “cult of personality” will weaken multi-party democracy, concluded BBC News.

The British newspaper, The Guardian described Nikol Pashinyan as a reformist and “former newspaper editor that “marks dramatic break from the cadre of rulers who have run Armenia since the late 1990s.”

Like BBC News, the Guardian mentioned that Pashinyan promised that there would be no major shifts in Armenian foreign policy after taking office, and has offered assurances he will not break ties with Moscow.

The famous American newspaper The New York Times published Associated Press and Reuters’s press releases. Following the idea that Armenia will keep the good relationship with Russia, the press release added that Armenia hosts a Russian military base and is a member of Russia-led military and economic alliances. “Pashinyan also suggested he would stick with existing policies on the long-running issue of Nagorno-Karabakh,” the article states.

French speaking media also gave some place to Armenia’s election. The French mainstream newspaper Le Monde called the holding of the election “free, fair and transparent” and added that Nikol Pashinyan is changing the politics of Armenia. Le Monde underlined the popularity of the Acting Prime Minister, writing that the Armenian people call their Head of State “Pachi”. They also added that this victory is not surprising due to the popularity of Pashinyan, since he led the Velvet Revolution of spring 2018 that resulted in a change of power, leading to a democratic government.

Libération, a leftist French newspaper, noted that Pashinyan will face serious challenges such as an “economic revolution” in a country riddled by corruption where one third of the population lives under the poverty line.

The Spanish media, El Periódico, wrote about the democratic holding of the election.

More than 300 observers, mostly deployed by the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), described the electoral process as democratic.

The newspaper compared Pashinyan’s 70 percent landslide victory with other countries in the region that also held elections with that high percentage of votes. The media said that according to observers, none of those elections were democratic, except for the one in Armenia.

Voter turnout, however, was low, at about 49 percent. La Vanguardia wrote that Pashinyan justified the low turnout by saying that the country is no longer in the times when people were bribed for their vote. “This time it didn’t happen that way, and it can’t happen anymore,” Pashinyan said.