Armenia’s National Assembly has adopted, in a second reading at an extraordinary session, amendments to the Electoral Code that ban the use of personal names in the titles of party alliances.
The bill passed with 67 votes in favor, six against, and no abstentions.
The ruling Civil Contract faction decided, about two months before parliamentary elections, to “correct a technical flaw” in the code, according to http://Factor.am , stipulating that alliance names should not be personalized.
The draft was included in the agenda of the extraordinary session as urgent, as the Central Electoral Commission will begin registering parties and alliances from April 13. It was noted that the proposed amendments to the constitutional law “Electoral Code of the Republic of Armenia” also aim to tighten voting procedures and clarify several regulations.
At the initiative of Arusyak Julhakyan, Alkhas Ghazaryan, and Artur Hovhannisyan, it was proposed to establish that when opening the ballot box, the chair of the electoral commission may not hold any item other than the voting envelope. A ballot is considered invalid if it contains any writing or marking, as well as if any object other than the ballot paper is found inside the voting envelope.
According to the justification, this provision is aimed at preventing possible mechanisms of vote-buying control, where voters might be required to place identifying marks inside the envelope.
The draft also stipulates that in such cases, the voting envelope will be immediately canceled along with the ballot inside it, and those ballots will later be counted as invalid.
At the same time, it was proposed to remove the technical requirement that alliance names must include, in parentheses, the names of all parties within the bloc. According to the justification, the changes aim to improve the efficiency of organizing electoral processes, reduce practical issues, and ensure transparent and fair elections.
During the discussion of the draft, representatives of the Strong Armenia party held a protest in front of the National Assembly building. They had recently announced their intention to participate in the upcoming parliamentary elections with the “Strong Armenia with Samvel Karapetyan” alliance. They argued that such important changes should not be introduced when only two months remain before the elections and described the initiative as undemocratic.
Opposition parliamentary factions Hayastan and I Have Honor also opposed the initiative, stressing that changing the “rules of the game” shortly before elections is unacceptable.
