YEREVAN–Amid allegations of massive voter intimidation and fraud, the Yerevan municipal elections concluded Sunday night when polls closed at 8 p.m.
The Central Election Commission issued preliminary results Monday, announcing that Serzh Sarkisian’s ruling Republican Party of Armenia came ahead with 55.86 percent of the voter. Trailing in second place was the Prosperous Armenia Party with 23.05 percent. Opposition presidential candidate Raffi Hovannisian’s Barev Yerevan bloc garnered 8.47 percent of the votes.
The Armenian National Congress party, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, the Rule of Law Party and the Mission Party received 4.39, 3.79, 3.73 and 0.64 percent of the votes respectively. The aforementioned four parties did not garner the six percent of the votes needed to be part of the City Council.
The CEC also announced that of the 816,478 registered voters in the city 437,212 participated in Sunday’s election.
The CEC will issue final results on May 12.
ARF Reaction
The ARF Supreme Council of Armenia issued a statement Monday saying that it participated in the elections in order to change the moral climate of the country and to inspire the citizens to have hope and confidence in the future.
However, the ARF added, the ruling regime, once again used infinite state resources and bribes to force their victory upon the electorate.
“The monopoly of the authorities has gotten even stronger,” warned the ARF adding that the ruling regime can now govern both the country and the capital.
The ARF said that it will not retreat from its principled position and will continue to work to implement radical change for the sake of the country, freedoms and the well-being of Armenian citizens.
I think ARF has to realize now that the voters in Armenia are generally apathetic to its message because for the past 20 years it has been unable to improve its electoral score. So perhaps the current leadership should go , as it is common in all elections when the leadership in place suffers such losses.ARF has to find imaginative people who will spent energy and effort building up the base,developing a vision and creating a supportive strategy that brings it popular support, if it wants to win election. Otherwise screaming foul after each election does not serve any purpose.
This story makes me want to puke.
Will Armenia EVER be a free, democratic and prosperous nation? WHEN!? It is worse than a corrupt, third-world, military-run, money-robbing, African country? The FIRST CHRISTIAN NATION….LOL….stealing, murdering, lying and cheating, every day in government and on the streets.
5,000 years of Armenian History can’t be wrong. It is a matter of time until Armenia is taken over. Armenians only know how to live under the rule of others. They will never be their own clean, just, and compassionate rulers. They will run themselves to the ground.
Armenians kill each other, lie to one another, cheat from each other, steal from each other and smoke five packs of cigarettes a day. The filthy turks just have to sit there and wait until Armenia self-destructs and then they can just walk across the border with their hands in their pockets and take over.
@ pathetic
Please assimilate as soon as you can.
Is it really that hard for you guys to fathom that maybe people actually want the RPA in power? For Petes sake, the ARF was in power when we fell to communism and we have just left communism so why go back to the same ideology again?
In 1918, Armenia’s 1st Republic was born in the midst of the ongoing Armenian Genocide (1915-1923)when it folded. What’s the RPA in the midst of, other than pillaging the very people it is supposedly serving….?
ARF ideology is socialism. The country just spent 71 years being destroyed by communism. Why would they vote for socialists when they spent 71 years getting hammered by socialism?