The Armenian parliament will again debate next week a package of major amendments to the Electoral Code drafted by the government.
Under Armenia’s constitution, the amendments have to be backed by at least 63 members of the 105-member National Assembly. Only 56 parliament deputies voted for them on Monday.
The government bill, if passed, could somewhat influence the outcome of snap parliamentary elections expected in December. It would, among other things, change the existing legal mechanism for distributing parliament seats which many believe favored Serzh Sarkisian’s Republican Party (HHK) in the last parliamentary elections held in April 2017.
The bill was not passed primarily because of opposition from the HHK. The party led by former President Serzh Sarkisian said that lawmakers could not have properly examined it because it was sent to them by the government just a few days ago.
Pashinian and representatives of other parliamentary forces denounced the HHK’s stance as “sabotage.” The parliament’s HHK-affiliated speaker Ara Babloyan rejected the criticism, saying that his party acted in good faith.
Lawmakers supporting the proposed changes collected on Tuesday enough signatures to force another debate and vote. “An extraordinary sitting of the parliament with the same agenda -- amendments to the Electoral Code -- will be convened on Monday,” one of them, Naira Zohrabian, told reporters.
The draft amendments are backed by Gagik Tsarukian’s Prosperous Armenia Party, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) and the Yelk alliance. The three forces control 47 parliament seats between them, meaning that they need the backing of independent deputies as well as dissident members of the HHK’s parliamentary faction.
In the 2017 elections, Armenians voted for not only parties and blocs as a whole but also their individual candidates running in a dozen nationwide constituencies. The individual races greatly helped the HHK to score a landslide victory at the time.