Amsterdam & Partners LLP: Armenian Opposition Challenges Legitimacy of Armenian Parliamentary Elections as Fraud Concerns Grow
Amsterdam & Partners LLP, international counsel to Strong Armenia leader Samvel Karapetyan, today expresses further concern regarding widespread electoral violations and procedural irregularities that materially affected the outcome of Armenia's parliamentary elections.
The statement follows formal challenges by all major opposition parties to the election results, and comes amid growing scrutiny of the conduct of the electoral process, including substantiated allegations of abuse of administrative resources and the use of law enforcement bodies against opponents of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who secured less than half the vote but is due to remain in power due to the country's electoral threshold rule that prevented smaller opposition parties from entering parliament.
Approximately 100,000 votes cast in favour of the ruling Civil Contract party are reported to have been processed through manual data entry rather than standard passport verification procedures, raising serious questions regarding their validity. Were these votes properly scrutinised, the outcome of the election could have been materially affected.
