The situation at Sunday’s session of the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) of Armenia became tense when CEC chairman Vahagn Hovakimyan, who was reading the CEC final decision on the June 7 National Assembly (parliament) election results, announced that the invalidation of voting results in three precincts did not affect the election results.

“How does it not affect?” questions were raised.

The CEC chair urged not to disrupt the session. “When the CEC makes a decision, you have the right to appeal to the Constitutional Court.”

Those in attendance, however, did not calm down.

Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) representative Iveta Tonoyan demanded to clearly state what constitutes a “significant influence” on the election results. “You are hindering the establishment of democracy in Armenia,” she added.

Another PAP representative noted: “If 300 votes were lacking for the PAP not to pass [the minimum threshold to enter parliament], were we going to invalidate the results of four [election] precincts?”

Vahagn Hovakimyan told those who were speaking out to leave and continued reading the CEC decision, and said: “During the preparation and voting for the NA [i.e. National Assembly] elections, there were no violations of the RA [i.e. the Republic of Armenia] Electoral Code that could have affected the election results.”

After that, the aforesaid decision was adopted by vote.

Earlier, the CEC chairman had announced how many votes each political force had received in the June 7 election. Accordingly, PAP had garnered 3.98 percent of the vote and did not pass the minimum threshold of 4 percent—for individual political parties—to enter parliament.