From new CEC data to Pashinyan’s victory statements, it was all a well-planned scheme: Tigran Kocharyan

The Central Election Commission today published the preliminary results of Armenia’s parliamentary elections. According to the data, three political forces will enter the NA: the “Strong Armenia” alliance, the “Civil Contract” party, and the “Armenia” bloc. The question of whether the PAP will enter parliament remains unclear. Alpha News spoke on this topic with Tigran Kocharyan, editor-in-chief of the news agency.

“The vote-counting process dragged on considerably. The day before, many noticed that some 4–5 hours had passed since the polling stations closed, yet no data from Yerevan and other major cities had been made public. Only data from small villages was released, fed into the mix in order to justify a high vote percentage in favor of ‘Civil Contract.’ Unfortunately, some opposition media outlets and figures took the bait, convincing people that ‘Civil Contract’ could secure a high vote percentage, which gave the authorities a certain confidence,” Kocharyan noted.

According to him, everything from the newly published data to Nikol Pashinyan’s victory statements was a well-planned scheme.

“What was particularly noteworthy here was Nikol Pashinyan’s behavior. At 00:30 at night, when nothing was yet clear and only 10% of votes had been counted, he held a press conference and declared victory in the elections. A similar situation occurred in 1996 under Levon Ter-Petrosyan, when the vote count had not yet been completed, but he came out with a champagne glass in hand and began accepting congratulations. In other words, it is safe to say that in this case the authorities decided to seize the initiative. And everything from the recently published data to Pashinyan’s victory statements was a clearly orchestrated scheme,” Kocharyan emphasized.

Details in the video.