Former mayor of Yerevan, New Force party prime ministerial candidate Hayk Marutyan voted in Sunday’s parliamentary elections in Armenia.

Marutyan cast his ballot at polling station 4/53 in Yerevan's Arabkir administrative district.

Before voting, he told reporters that a high voter turnout in the elections is beneficial to the opposition, since the incumbent Armenian authorities have secured their votes in one way or another using the levers of administrative resources, adding that we have seen this picture in the Yerevan Council of Elders elections.

"If the people make their choice and there are no [electoral] violations, we must respect that choice, whether it is in the case of a victory for the authorities or the opposition," he noted, expressing confidence that the New Force party will enter parliament.

“For us [i.e. the New Force party], cooperation with the [ruling] Civil Contract [party], which has nominated [incumbent PM] Nikol Pashinyan as a candidate for prime minister, as well as with the ‘Armenia’ bloc, which has nominated [former President] Robert Kocharyan [as a candidate for prime minister], is a red line. Cooperation with other [political] forces is possible only if they adhere to the provisions of our programs,” Marutyan said.

He recalled that earlier he had invited Pashinyan to a face-to-face debate, “so let the people [of Armenia] decide who ran away from whom.”

“There is no force in Armenia that wants war. This is manipulation, this is fear mongering, when the authorities say, ‘If not for us, there will be war [with Azerbaijan],’” Hayk Marutyan concluded.