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Polling stations open in Armenian parliamentary elections

Armenia holds parliamentary elections on Sunday. Eight political parties and one election bloc contend for 131 parliamentary seats

YEREVAN, May 6 (Itar-Tass) — Armenia holds parliamentary elections on Sunday. Eight political parties and one election bloc contend for 131 parliamentary seats.

Polling stations in Yerevan and all regions of the republic opened at 8:00 am local time. There are 131 deputies in the National Assembly (parliament) of Armenia. The voting will continue till 20:00 on Sunday. The electoral code of Armenia binds the Central Election Commission to publish data on voter activity at least once every three hours.

A new state-of-the-art information centre has opened at the Central Election Commission for that aim. Observers from local public organizations and international organizations, including the OSCE and the CIS, monitor the election. The Commonwealth of Independent States is represented by 173 observers working in Yerevan and all other districts.

At the request of Armenia TV channel, renowned American sociological research institute Gallup organizes on Sunday the so-called ‘exit polls’ – poll of voters immediately after they have exited polling stations.

“We are making every effort to make these elections qualitatively different from previous ones,” Prime Minister Tigran Sarkisyan said at talks with CIS mission officials on Thursday.

He noted that the presence of observers from the Commonwealth of Independent States is a major support for spreading objective information about the elections, the government press service said.

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