Decision on Putin-Pashinyan meeting to be made after Armenian elections’ official results

MOSCOW, June 10. /TASS/. Moscow does not anticipate a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan until the official results of the parliamentary elections in Armenia are announced, Russian Presidential Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Wednesday.

Peskov pointed out that the official announcement of the election results is expected to be made on June 14, while many election participants had been planning to lodge a protest contesting the elections’ results.

"This is why the Armenian prime minister is probably busy at the moment with finalizing domestic processes in the country. Later on and depending on the final results of this pre-election story, we will make a bilateral-level decision [on Putin-Pashinyan meeting]," Peskov said at a news conference.

Armenia held its parliamentary elections on June 7. On election day, observers and opposition members started to point to the unprecedented number of irregularities, including carousel voting and ballot removal. The authorities detained opposition members both during the election campaign and on election day.

According to preliminary updated data from the Central Election Commission of Armenia, three political forces are entering the country's parliament based on the election results. Civil Contract led by Nikol Pashinyan won 49.825% of the votes, the Strong Armenia alliance of businessman Samvel Karapetyan received 23.281%, and the Armenia Alliance of former President Robert Kocharyan gained 9.934%. The Prosperous Armenia party of businessman Gagik Tsarukyan, according to corrected data, received 3.996% of the votes and does not enter parliament, where the threshold for parties is 4%. Tsarukyan's party has already stated that they have submitted a request to the CEC for a recount of votes at a number of precincts.

Voter turnout was 58.97%. Earlier, local observers and the opposition signaled unprecedented violations during the voting. Reports emerged of the organization of so-called electoral carousels, the removal of ballots, open voting, and collective voting by military personnel. The elections were accompanied by detentions of representatives of opposition forces both during the election campaign and during the days of silence and voting.