The Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe (PACE) concluded Armenia’s parliamentary elections offered voters a genuine choice and were well run. However, PACE criticised the Central Election Commission (CEC) for annulling the results at three polling stations, claiming that the excluded results could have affected the election outcome. The report suggests amending the electoral law to address this issue in the future.

In the June parliamentary elections, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party won with 49.75% of the vote, winning 64 seats in parliament: a three-fifths majority.

Gagik Tsarukyan’s Prosperous Armenia party came close to entering parliament; Following a recount at several polling stations, the party secured 3.98% of the vote, falling just 0.02 percentage points short of the 4% threshold required.

The PACE report criticised the Commission’s choice to annul results in three polling stations. The CEC said they annulled the vote at these stations as, in two cases, members of the military were permitted to vote after the legal closing time. At the third station, ballots for one party were missing for most of the day.

According to calculations cited in PACE’s report, including the results from these stations could have put Prosperous Armenia over the threshold: which would have prevented Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party from achieving a three-fifth majority in parliament.

Losing this majority would prevent Civil Contract from appointing Constitutional Court judges independently and amending certain aspects of national electoral legislation. Even without Prosperous Armenia in parliament, Pashinyan still lacks the constitutional majority required to hold a referendum to amend the constitution, which he has repeatedly stated he wants to do.

The CEC declined to order a revote at the time, explaining that the invalidation did not affect the overall result. The PACE delegation described this justification as ‘very insufficient’ given the stakes.

RFE/RL reports that the CEC had previously justified their decision to hold the vote again on the basis that voters would already be aware of the number of votes each party needed to win. While the report acknowledges that the CEC cited a Venice Commission opinion on the risk of tactical voting in repeat polls, it notes that the commission’s opinion does not rule out a vote if the outcome would fundamentally change the allocation of seats.

To avoid such situations, the delegation recommends amending the electoral code to explicitly require the election to be re-held when it could fundamentally change the results.

Neither the CEC nor the government had responded to the observations. Prosperous Armenia welcomed the recommendations.

‘Of course the parliament has been formed, but this parliament will go down in history as the parliament that deprived one parliamentary faction of the chance to enter it. The historical fact has now been recorded. It is on record that, thanks to the arbitrariness of this particular government, Prosperous Armenia has been deprived of the opportunity to appear in parliament’, the party’s spokesperson Iveta Tonoyan told RFE/RL.

In July, Armenian authorities arrested Tsarukyan for alleged money laundering. He denied the charges and called them ‘fabricated’.

The report states that the scale of Russian interference and foreign information operations was unprecedented for a Council of Europe member state. The report mentions several ways in which Russia tried to interfere, including restrictions on Armenian exports such as flowers, mineral water, and alcohol; threats to revise gas and oil supply terms; the demand from Eurasian Economic Union leaders that Armenia hold a referendum on choosing between the bloc and the EU; and Russian-linked information campaigns and threats against Armenian citizens and business owners. However, the delegation said allegations that tens of thousands of Russian-based Armenians would be brought in to vote remain unproven.

Observers also noted that Western leaders’ endorsement of the ruling party, including the US and French presidents, was perceived as interfering too, but the report describes these as far milder and non-coercive.

The PACE delegation noted significant ongoing gaps such as a lack of effective safeguards and proportionate sanctioning against administrative abuse. The delegation raised concerns about equal opportunities for political parties and stated that the campaign had become polarised. The delegation found that there were more than 200 investigations into suspected vote-buying, primarily targeting the opposition. This reinforced the perception of selective prosecution, and no convictions had been recorded by the time the report was written.

Employees in the public sector reported feeling pressured to attend rallies organised by the ruling party. Pre-election social measures, such as debt forgiveness and benefit increases, were seen as de facto campaign tools. While public television and key private broadcasters displayed a clear pro-government bias, other outlets were consistently critical of the government. The campaign also used AI-generated deepfakes.

Finally, the report noted an increase in voter turnout to 58.97%, up from 48.62% in 2018 and 49.40% in 2021. However, only 45% of polling stations were independently accessible to voters with disabilities. Observers recorded violations in around 44% of the observed precincts, primarily consisting of procedural errors, overcrowding, and breaches of secrecy.

Although the PACE 2021 report on the previous parliamentary elections did not have a single figure for violations, it stated that voting was rated positively in 98% of stations, with overcrowding in 14%, proxy or other interference in 6%,  and secrecy problems in 4%. The Prosecutor’s Office logged 319 election-day complaints.