Armenia’s ruling Civil Contract party lacks just two votes to have a three-fifths majority, former deputy speaker of the National Assembly (parliament), Arpine Hovhannisyan, wrote on Facebook.

Hovhannisyan wrote as follows: “At the moment, as a result of the results summarized by the Central Electoral Commission, as well as the application of a number of calculations and formulas (distribution of mandates of national minorities, dispersion of votes), the mandate picture of the [new] National Assembly is as follows: 61 mandates for the Civil Contract party, 28 mandates – the Strong Armenia bloc, 11 mandates – the ‘Armenia’ bloc, and 5 mandates – the Prosperous Armenia party.

Under the conditions of these arithmetical arrangements, the Civil Contract party lacks just 2 votes to have a three-fifths (3/5) majority.

I urge the opposition representatives not to call hasty press conferences to justify why they are taking the mandates, and not to rush to declare that the [incumbent] authorities do not have this many or that many. We all remember similar statements made after the previous elections, we also remember who and how supported the Civil Contract party during various votes in the future.

Therefore, as a friendly advice, if there is anything worth focusing on at the moment, it is the strength of your [electoral] lists passing to parliament, and the political reliability of the MPs appearing there.

Because the issue is not only the distribution of mandates today; the issue is also to what extent those same mandates and votes will maintain their political affiliation and position tomorrow.”