YEREVAN, April 2. /TASS/. Armenia’s ruling Republican Party led by President Serzh Sargsyan is leading Sunday’s parliamentary elections, according to exit polls conducted by Gallup International.
According to the polls, the Republic Party is winning 46% of votes. The Tsarukyan Bloc of Armenia’s richest businessman Gagik Tsarukyan is scoring 25%, the Elk (Exit) Bloc is winning ten percent, and the Dashnaktsutyun party is winning five percent of the vote.
Under the Armenia laws, to win parliamentary seats, a party needs to overcome a five percent threshold, while an election bloc needs to score more than seven percent of votes.
According to exit polls, the Armenian Revival party (4%), the Oganyan-Raffi-Oskanyan Bloc and the Congress - Armenian People’s Party Bloc (each winning three percent of the vote), the Communist Party and the Free Democrats party (each having two percent) are failing to win parliamentary seats.
Gallup International’s 300 pollsters worked at 125 polling stations across the country. The poll was sponsored by the Yerevan-based Erkir Media television channel. The statistical error is in the range of 2-3%
Sunday’s election is the first polling after the 2015 constitutional reform when Armenia became a parliamentary republic. The new parliament will be formed on the multi-party proportional basis, with no voting in one-seat constituencies.
According to the police, more than 2.5 million citizens have been included in the voters’ register. Armenia’s electoral legislation does not provide for arranging polling stations outside the country. The Armenian nationals staying abroad - diplomats, members of their families, military servicemen and cadets of military schools - took part in the electronic voting online on March 24-26, with 877 people added to the relevant lists. The results of their voting will be taken into account when counting the votes.
More than 28,000 representatives of 49 non-governmental organizations along with international observers from the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), the CIS Inter-Parliamentary Assembly, the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly and the European Parliament monitored the elections - a total of 640 international observers.
The country’s Central Election Commission will publish preliminary results a day after the voting is over - on April 3. Final results will be announced within a week after the elections, before April 9.