Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) Secretary General Sergey Lebedev has expressed hope that the situation in Armenia will stabilize after the parliamentary elections held on Sunday.

“Let’s hope that the situation in Armenia will stabilize,” Lebedev said in an interview with TASS.

The CIS chief noted that the elections were held in difficult conditions, and the CIS observation mission also saw what was happening before the start of voting.

“But in general, our mission recorded that everything was normal at the polling stations,” Lebedev added.

According to preliminary data from the Central Electoral Commission of Armenia, these three political forces will enter parliament as a result of Sunday’s elections: Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract Party (49.825% of the vote), businessman Samvel Karapetyan’s Strong Armenia bloc (23.281% of the vote), and former President Robert Kocharyan’s “Armenia” bloc (9.934% of the vote).

Local observers and the opposition have raised the alarm about unprecedented violations recorded during the voting. The elections were accompanied by arrests of members of opposition forces, both during the pre-election campaign and during the days of silence and voting.

Businessman Gagik Tsarukyan’s Prosperous Armenia Party, which, according to preliminary data, does not pass the 4% threshold to enter parliament, has announced that they have filed a request for a recount of votes in a number of polling stations.