Polls in Armenia to elect members of parliament in the first vote after the referendum on constitutional amendments closed at 8:00 pm on Sunday, April 2.
1,317,936 voters out of 2,557,706 (50.93%) cast ballots in the elections as of 5:00pm. 49.6% of voters cast ballots in Yerevan.
Polling stations had opened across Armenia exactly 12 hours earlier.
Nine political forces, including 4 blocs and 5 parties were running for seats at the National Assembly - Republican, Armenian Revolutionary Federation Dashnaktsutyun, Armenian Renaissance, Free Democrats and Communist parties, as well as Tsarukyan, YELQ, ANC-PPA and Ohanyan-Raffi-Oskanian blocs.
The majority of polling stations were equipped with cameras to provide live broadcast of elections. However, several opposition forces reported later that most cameras installed in 1500 out of the total of 2000 polling stations weren’t functioning properly.
Later, Central Election Commission chair Tigran Mukuchyan announced about the failure of technical equipment at two polling stations.
Top officials and party leaders, including president Serzh Sargsyan, prime minister Karen Karapetyan and defense minister Vigen Sargsyan, Communist leader Tachat Sargsyan, Tsarukyan bloc leader Gagik Tsarukyan cast their ballots in their respective polling stations.
The head of the European Union delegation to Armenia, ambassador Piotr Switalski said he is expecting a positive outcome of the elections, while OSCE observation mission representative Elvira Drobinski noted that elections pass without significant violations.
Armenia's investigative committee received 73 reports of election offenses in the period between 8:00 am and 7:00 pm.
Also, 84 reports on suspected electoral violations were filed to the Armenian police as of 5:00pm, while the Prosecutor General’s office studied 1317 election-related reports as of 6:00 pm.
A number of cases of electoral fraud, including double voting and open ballot casting were registered by various organizations, observers and individuals.
PanARMENIAN.Net provided live coverage of the course of elections.
