Choosing Proportional Representation will Mean Armenia’s Authorities Want to Hold Democratic Elections: MP

The administration’s move to adopt or not adopt a 100% proportional representation voting system ahead of the parliamentary elections will decide, much like a detector, whether the authorities actually want to hold democratic elections or not, said Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun or ARF-D) parliamentary faction member Armen Rustamyan at a forum jointly organized by the ARF-D and Heritage Party today, which was directed at discussing the issues and tasks related to the two parties’ joint legislative move to conduct the upcoming parliamentary elections using a 100% proportional system.

Rustamyan stated that the parliamentary opposition is suggesting this amendment be made for two reasons: first, because everyone agrees that a proportional system will bring quality changes to the elections, and second, adopting this change several months ahead of the elections will not evoke any procedural obstacles. Note, the two parties’ proposal was also welcomed by extra-parliamentary opposition groups the Armenian National Congress and the Free Democrats party.

The ARF-D MP pointed out that the ruling Republican Party of Armenia also agrees with this proposal, but it simply wants to delay the change and make the amendment after the elections.

“The authorities have to clearly respond to the question, if they agree in principle, why don’t they want to implement the changes now? MPs elected through a majority system till now have served as the authorities’ support pillar. This is a tool to push out the opposition because the opposition, even if it gathers more votes through the majority system, won’t comprise the parliamentary majority,” he said.

“MPs elected through the majority system, 71% of them have kept silent in the National Assembly, 5% have occasionally made a peep, and only 7% have been active,” said ARF-D MP Artsvik Minasyan, in turn.

Prosperous Armenia MP Naira Zohrabyan, speaking at the forum, said she is personally in favor of the parliamentary opposition’s proposal for proportional representation, but this is not her party’s official position as the Prosperous Armenia party hasn’t discussed this matter yet. Zohrabyan advised conducting a referendum in order to find out the public’s opinion on the matter.