Armenia's pro-Western ruling party wins parliamentary poll

Yerevan [Armenia], June 9: Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's pro-Western ruling party has come out on top in the country's parliamentary election, preliminary final results showed following Sunday's vote.
Some 49.8% of Armenians voted for Pashinyan's Civil Contract party, the Central Electoral Commission said on Monday.
The pro-Russian Strong Armenia party, led by billionaire Samvel Karapetyan, came in second with 23.3%.
Voter turnout stood at 59%, significantly higher than in the previous parliamentary election in 2021.
Former president Robert Kocharyan came third with his Armenia alliance, which secured just under 10% of the vote.
Kocharyan is said to have excellent relations with Russian President Vladimir Putin.
The pro-Russian Prosperous Armenia Party looked initially set to enter parliament with 4% of the vote.
However, the electoral commission later put the party at 3.996%, meaning it would have failed to clear the required hurdle by a razor-thin margin.
The chairman of the electoral commission, Vahagn Hovakimyan, stressed that the figures were preliminary and subject to review and correction.
Pashinyan's Civil Contract has won 61 of the 105 seats in the National Assembly, according to the preliminary results.
OSCE lauds professional election process Meanwhile, observers from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) described the election as a "genuine choice" for voters following a tense campaign.
"Armenia's voters were given - and took - the opportunity to make a genuine choice in a professionally managed election process and a vibrant and pluralistic, if often highly polarized campaign," Janez Lenarei?, head of the election observation mission from the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, said in a statement.
But Farah Karimi, Special Coordinator and leader of the short-term OSCE observer mission, added: "The concentration of arrests and criminal prosecutions against opposition figures contributed to perceptions of selective justice, while a polarized media landscape, inflammatory rhetoric, misinformation, and persistent foreign pressure and interference challenged Armenia's democratic resilience and the integrity of public debate."
"This underscores the importance of continued efforts to strengthen democratic institutions, safeguard fundamental freedoms, and foster public trust in democratic processes," Karimi asserted.
Arrests and bomb threats
The election, held against the backdrop of high tensions with Russia, was marked by arrests, bomb threats and finger pointing.
Karapetyan said more than 100 of his supporters had been detained over the past two days. "At this very moment, further arrests of our supporters are taking place," he said as he cast his vote.
Karapetyan, who also holds a Russian passport, has himself been under house arrest for months. The authorities accuse him of attempting a coup in connection with unrest earlier this year.
Source: Qatar Tribune