YEREVAN. – Pursuant to the new Constitution of Armenia, the number of MPs can practically be between 120 and 130.

Member of the Specialized Committee on Constitutional Reforms, ex-Justice Minister Hrayr Tovmasyan, stated the above-said at a press conference on Friday.

“[Pursuant to the draft constitution,] the number of deputies can be 101 at least. The new constitution envisions one to four [parliamentary] mandates also for the representatives of national minorities; they, too, will be added to those 101 MPs,” said Tovmasyan. “In addition, all the [political] parties which overcome the 5-percent barrier, and the alliances which overcome the 7-percent threshold, will be in the parliament.”

In his words, if a political party that gets 45 percent of votes in the first round wins the second round, too, it will gain parliamentary seats again, and as a result, the number of MPs will reach 110.

“So, in theory, it is possible to have 198 MPs in the parliament, whereas in practice, 120 to 130,” added Hrayr Tovmasyan.

Chapters 1 through 7 of the new draft Constitution of Armenia were made public on Wednesday. Accordingly, the country will make a transition to a parliamentary system of governance.