President Serzh Sargsyan at a meeting with the ambassadors of OSCE member states on Tuesday, April 18 hailed recent elections to the National Assembly, adding that Armenia registered “important progress” in democratization and state building processes.

“I believe that progress in the elections was defined by a number of factors, and I would like to invite your attention to three of them,” Sargsyan said.

“First, in recent years we succeeded in making the promotion of fundamental human rights and basic liberties irreversible.”

The president added that Armenia still faces a lot of problems, but does have a solid foundation to do better.

“The second reason for progress is the consensus among various political forces, while the third reason is the exclusively high level of international cooperation,” he said, expressing gratitude to the countries that sent observers to the elections, to OSCE/ODIHR, Parliamentary Assembly of the OSCE, CIS Secretariat, CIS Parliamentary Assembly, European Parliament, PACE, and observer missions from the embassies.

According to the final assessment of elections provided by the Central Electoral Commission, the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) claims 58 mandates, including three for minority representatives (Yezidi, Assyrian and Kurdish), the Tsarukyan bloc has 31 seats overall, including one for a Russian community representative, while YELQ bloc and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation - Dashnaktsutyun get nine and seven parliamentary seats, respectively.