I Have Honor Alliance says it may join Armenia Alliance in disputing election results

By Emilio Luciano Cricchio

Artur Vanetsyan, the leader of the I Have Honor Alliance which won seven seats in Armenia’s next parliament, has stated that he is in discussion with other parties on potentially disputing the June 20 snap parliamentary election results in the country’s Constitutional Court. Vanetsyan stated this in a press conference on June 23.

The I Have Honor electoral bloc garnered 5.23% of votes in the 2021 legislative elections, and is led by former National Security Service head Artur Vanetsyan. Two other major figures in the bloc are former President Serzh Sargsyan and former Yerevan Mayor Taron Margaryan.

Also Read: ** Armenia Voted - Now What?**

Despite not passing the 7% necessary threshold to enter parliament, the bloc still enters parliament because Armenia’s electoral code stipulates that a third force must enter parliament regardless of its performance in the election. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's Civil Contract Party came in first and second President Robert Kocharyan's Armenia Alliance came in second.

“I haven’t said that we accept the election results, all the violations that took place are being collected, the issue of applying to the Constitutional Court is being discussed with other political forces,” Vanetsyan said.

When asked by a reporter whether Vanetsyan himself will take up his seat in parliament, he responded that he will go to parliament and “not leave his team alone.”

Also Watch: ** Why did Pashinyan win?**

On June 21, one day after the election, the Armenia Alliance electoral bloc of former President Robert Kocharyan announced that it would apply to the Constitutional Court, regarding the validity of the election results, citing widespread violations and discrepancies.

"The bloc is launching political consultations with other forces who participated in the elections to discuss the possibility of applying to the Constitutional Court together," the bloc’s statement read.

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Armenia Voted: Now What?

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's Civil Contract Party received 53.92% of the votes. With this percentage, the party gained a **** constitutional majority in the newly elected parliament, meaning that its leader, Nikol Pashinyan, will be reelected as prime minister.

The second political force in the parliament will be former President Robert Kocharyan's Armenia Alliance with 21.04% of the votes, and the third - the I Have Honor Alliance - with 5.23% of the votes.

The parliament will consist of these three forces only. Previous parliamentary opposition groups, including Gagik Tsarukyan’s Prosperous Armenia and Edmon Marukyan’s Bright Armenia parties, did not receive enough votes to enter parliament.

Parliamentary seats

CivilNet’s preliminary calculations:

Civil Contract Party: 72 seats

Armenia Alliance: 28 seats

I Have Honor Alliance: 7 seats

Will Armenia's second President Robert Kocharyan take the position of an opposition deputy in parliament? Or will he give up his seat to someone else on the Armenia Alliance list?

New Opposition

While the Armenia Alliance says as long as the “problematic issues have not received comprehensive explanations”, it will not accept the election results, but has not made clear whether it might reject the vote all together and not take their seats in parliament.

In a statement, the Armenia Alliance said it plans to appeal the results of the election in the country’s Constitutional Court. “We have serious grounds to consider these elections illegitimate, and declare that with these results, the National Assembly does not reflect the real balance of power,” the statement reads.

In comparison, despite voicing their disappointment in the results of the election, I Have Honor Alliance noted that, “The opposition must also own up to its mistakes.”

The World’s Response?

So far, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili is the only foreign leader to congratulate Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on his party's victory in Armenia's parliamentary election.

“I extend warmest congratulations to [Armenian] PM Nikol Pashinyan on handling successful elections and victory of Civil Contract Party according to the preliminary results. I wish all success ahead. I look forward to working closely with new [Armenian] Government,” Garibashvili tweeted.

Georgia recently took credit for facilitating an agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan, through which Azerbaijan handed over 15 of hundreds of Armenian POWs, in exchange for a map detailing the location of landmines in Azerbaijan’s Aghdam region.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's spokesperson Dmitri Peskov said that the Kremlin sees Pashinyan's party's clear victory and congratulates the Armenian people on the election.

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Armenia’s I Have Honor Alliance Candidate Arrested for Vote Buying

By Emilio Luciano Cricchio

Armenia’s Special Investigative Service reported on June 14 that the former Mayor of Armavir region Ruben Khlghatyan, who is running to be a member of parliament with Artur Vanetsyan and former President Serzh Sargsyan’s I Have Honor Alliance, has been arrested for vote buying.

According to the Special Investigative Service, Khlghatyan attempted to bribe a number of residents of his native Janfida village in Armenia’s Armavir region, to secure votes for the I Have Honor Alliance, which is in the run for the June 20 snap parliamentary elections.

“Ruben Khlghatyan had reached an agreement with a resident of the village of Janfida to bribe at least 147 voters in the Armavir region to vote for the [I Have Honor Alliance] in the snap elections,” the statement of the Special Investigative Service reads.

The report states that on June 10, at around 4:30pm, Khlghatyan drove to the house of a Janfida resident with the intention of transferring close to $20,000 to be passed among a list of voters.

Both persons were detained by the police at the time of the transfer, and the money was confiscated by police from the yard of the same house.

The former mayor was later detained by police as he was transferring the money, which was confiscated after officers inspected the scene.

Khlghatyan and the resident were arrested, and the court has approved the prosecutor's petition for detention as a measure of restraint.

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Serzh Sargsyan Leads the ‘I Have Honor’ Alliance – #ArmVote21

The I Have Honor alliance (Pativ Unem Dashink) is a political alliance formed in May 2021 between the Republican Party (Hanrapetakan Kusaktsutyun) , led by former President Serzh Sargsyan , and the Homeland Party (Hayrenik Kusaktsutyun) of Artur Vanetsyan, the former head of the National Security Service. The alliance is running under the slogan “Stand tall. Let’s get to work so we can live!” (Ughghir mejkd. Kpnenk gortsin, vor aprenk!).

Heading the Slate: Serzh Sargsyan

Serzh Sargsyan served as Armenia’s third president, beginning in 2008 and ending in 2018, when he took on the position of an executive prime minister, according to the new constitution over whose adoption he had presided, in order to circumvent the two-term limit on the presidency. The April-May 2018 Velvet Revolution was, at least in part, a response to that move, and on April 22 Sargsyan resigned in response to massive street protests. Like his predecessor, Robert Kocharyan, Sargsyan is from Karabakh. And like Kocharyan, Sargsyan’s name has been tainted for many Armenians by the violent crackdown on protesters that took place on March 1, 2008, immediately after Sargsyan’s election. The violence left 10 dead and many Armenians distrustful of the then-ruling Republican Party.

The Special Investigative Service leveled charges of “embezzlement on an especially large scale” against Sargsyan in 2019. The case is still in the courts.

Republican Party

The Republican Party is one of Armenia’s longest-ruling political parties. The first political party to be founded in independent Armenia, the Republican Party was first formed in 1990 by Ashot Navasardyan, a prominent dissident in the Soviet period. The Republican Party won its first parliamentary election in 1999, at that time in alliance with the People’s Party of Armenia. Subsequent elections in 2003, 2007, 2012, and 2017 all saw the Republican Party emerge as the single largest party in the National Assembly. In the 2003 presidential election, it endorsed winning candidate Robert Kocharyan; in 2008 and 2013, it backed Serzh Sargsyan, the party chairman.

Throughout that time, critics and party members alike lashed out at widespread corruption, bribery, and nepotism associated with the Republican Party. Numerous oligarchs and other prominent businesspeople in Armenia were connected with the party at the time. The Republican Party has also faced accusations of vote-buying and election fraud.

In the December 2018 elections held after the Velvet Revolution, the Republican Party garnered less than 5% of the vote, falling below the electoral threshold needed to enter the legislature. This is the first time that the Republican Party has had no representation in the National Assembly since the 1990s.

Heading the Slate: Artur Vanetsyan

Artur Vanetsyan, from Yerevan, served as the head of the National Security Service from 2018 to 2019. He is also the founder and leader of the Homeland Party, formed in 2020. Though Vanetsyan served as Armenia’s security head under Pashinyan, the two men have had a dramatic falling-out following Vanetsyan’s dismissal. Since then, Vanetsyan has proven highly critical of Pashinyan’s government and has repeatedly called for him to step down.

In November 2020, just days after the Russia-brokered ceasefire between Armenia and Azerbaijan came into effect, Vanetsyan was among nearly a dozen opposition figures briefly detained for allegedly “organizing illegal violent mass disorder.” The charge stems from the activities of the Homeland Salvation Movement, an umbrella group of 17 opposition parties that opposed the terms of the ceasefire and held large rallies in Yerevan in the weeks after the war’s end. Both the Republican Party and the Homeland Party joined the group at the time.

Homeland Party

Artur Vanetsyan founded the Homeland Party in May 2020. At the time, he said, “We need to lay the foundations for security, stability and progress of our people and country with rule of law and democracy as the benchmarks.” The party currently has no seats in the National Assembly.

Both Vanetsyan and Sargsyan have branded the I Have Honor alliance as a vote against acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. They have repeatedly called for Pashinyan to resign or be removed from power, calling him “the capitulator,” in reference to Armenia’s disastrous performance in last year’s war in and around Karabakh.

“We will remove and hold accountable the capitulators who have discredited and humiliated our state and knelt before the enemy,” Sargsyan pledged. Meanwhile, Vanetsyan warned that “we are faced with the real threat of losing statehood.” The alliance’s platform stresses security and peace in Karabakh.

Interestingly, the alliance is putting forward Vanetsyan, the former national security chief, as its candidate for prime minister, rather than Sargsyan, the former president. Sargsyan has explained the decision by saying that “I believe that I have finished my service to Armenia and the Armenian people in high-level state positions.”

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