Opposition figure says Pashinyan's party lacks mandate for constitutional referendum

Narek Karapetyan, a board member of the opposition Strong Armenia party, said on Tuesday that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's Civil Contract party lacks the mandate to hold a constitutional referendum sought by Azerbaijan.

Speaking in a Facebook livestream, Karapetyan said constitutional law experts had concluded that Civil Contract does not have sufficient public support to initiate such a vote.

“According to the final opinion we received from constitutional law experts today, even after all these violations, election fraud and the theft of more than 50,000 votes from the Prosperous Armenia Party, Civil Contract still does not have a necessary mandate to hold a constitutional referendum in Armenia at Aliyev’s behest,” Karapetyan said.

His comments came after Armenia’s Central Electoral Commission published final election results showing that the Prosperous Armenia Party received 3.989% of the vote, narrowly missing the 4% threshold required to enter parliament.

Prosperous Armenia and other opposition groups had sought repeat voting at three polling stations. The commission later invalidated the results from those precincts and declined to organize a new vote.

The party has argued that the annulment was intended to keep it out of parliament.