Republican Party urges opposition consolidation

PanARMENIAN.Net - The Executive Body of the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) has declared that “no elections took place in Armenia on June 7; instead, what occurred was election fraud — a pre-planned criminal operation carried out under centralized direction and completed through the direct intervention of the head of the ruling regime, aimed at appropriating the people’s will.” The statement was published by the party.

The RPA called on “all political forces bearing national and state responsibility, as well as every citizen, to overcome differences and unite around a single objective: restoring the people’s appropriated choice and defending Armenia’s statehood.”

The party stated that throughout the pre-election period it had repeatedly noted that the electoral process did not provide free, fair, and competitive conditions. According to the RPA, this assessment was the reason it decided not to participate in the elections, in order not to lend them legitimacy.

“We share the assessments contained in the joint statement issued on June 14 by opposition political forces that participated in the elections. The widespread use of administrative resources, intimidation of state and municipal employees, political persecution and arrests of opposition figures and activists, the deliberate paralysis of opposition campaign headquarters, the transformation of state and pro-government media into tools of defamation, direct vote falsification, and the distortion of polling station results are all elements of a criminal plan directed from a single center. This is not a series of isolated violations but a systemic electoral robbery carried out through the machinery of the state.

This criminal plan was finalized by the Central Electoral Commission, which on June 14 carried out what we consider an open usurpation of the National Assembly’s three-fifths majority in favor of the Civil Contract party by unlawfully refusing to organize repeat voting in three polling stations and thereby depriving the Prosperous Armenia party of the opportunity to cross the electoral threshold. The official picture that emerged is not the result of an election but an open seizure of power by Civil Contract.

All state institutions, including the law enforcement system, the Central Electoral Commission, and the so-called independent bodies, have unlawfully served and continue to serve exclusively the goal of reproducing Nikol Pashinyan’s rule, deliberately failing to ensure lawful conditions for genuinely democratic elections.”

Based on these arguments, the Republican Party stated:

• The official results of the June 7 elections are false, null and void, and do not reflect the will of the Armenian people.
• The National Assembly formed on the basis of those results is not a representative body of the people but a collection of appropriated mandates lacking democratic legitimacy.
• The Republican Party does not recognize either the parliament formed in this manner or the authorities it creates as a lawful expression of the people’s will.
• Political and legal responsibility for plunging the country into a deep domestic political crisis and for all possible consequences rests personally with Nikol Pashinyan, who, according to the party, violated citizens’ constitutional right to vote in order to retain power at any cost.

The party again called on political forces and citizens to unite around the goal of restoring what it describes as the people’s stolen choice and defending Armenia’s statehood.

“We will continue to fight consistently and uncompromisingly, exclusively through the Constitution, the law, and democratic principles, in defense of citizens’ electoral rights, the interests of the Republic of Armenia, and the fundamental values of democracy.

A falsified election cannot and will not become a source of legitimate authority. The Republic has been and remains our highest value,” the statement said.

On June 14, the final results of the June 7 parliamentary elections were published. Civil Contract received 726,819 votes, or 49.7456 percent; Strong Armenia received 340,006 votes, or 23.2710 percent; and the Armenia Alliance received 144,983 votes, or 9.9231 percent. Prosperous Armenia failed to pass the 4 percent threshold required for parliamentary representation, receiving 58,287 votes, or 3.9893 percent.

Civil Contract will hold 64 parliamentary seats, including three allocated to representatives of national minorities. Strong Armenia will have 29 seats, including one seat for an Assyrian representative, while the Armenia Alliance will hold 12 seats.