The Republic Party on Friday petitioned to the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) of Armenia with a request to invalidate the registration of the electoral list of the Strong Armenia bloc.

The petition was submitted to the CEC by Republic Party members Ani Khachatryan, Grigor Arakelyan, and lawyer Tigran Yegoryan.

Speaking to reporters after leaving the CEC, Grigor Arakelyan said: “In this case, we specifically demand that the CEC invalidate its decision to register the electoral list of the Strong Armenia bloc of parties. We believe that there are sufficient grounds to invalidate that registration by a CEC decision.

If, however, the CEC finds that the grounds for invalidating that registration by its own decision are insufficient, then we demand that the CEC exercise its rights under the Electoral Code and petition to Armenia’s Administrative Court with such a demand.”

Referring to the grounds for their petition, Arakelyan said: “The grounds are ‘screaming,’ for the umpteenth month now that the chairman of the Republic Party, Aram Sargsyan, public figures have been speaking out about numerous unhealthy phenomena that could have a significant impact on the outcome of the [parliamentary] elections [in Armenia on Sunday] and could drastically change the outcome of the elections. It’s about external influence, about financial transparency. There is also talk of pressure from abroad to relocate Armenia’s citizens to Armenia. People come by car [to Armenia] just that day, with the intention of participating in the elections under duress, voting for the candidate of some country’s liking, and leaving the country’s territory the very next day. All this is aimed at disrupting the normal course of the elections, and we believe Armenia’s authorities had something to do in this regard and did not do [it].”

Regarding the timeframes for considering the aforesaid, representatives of the Republic Party said that the CEC should convene a special session in this regard. “This issue must be resolved by the end of the day preceding the vote, by 24:00.”

During Thursday’s debate between leading figures live on Public Television, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan had called on opposition leaders to petition to the Central Electoral Commission on this matter.