YEREVAN. - The participation of several parties in the local self-government and nationwide elections ensures the victory of the Armenian ruling party in them. 

Political analyst Manvel Sargsyan said the aforementioned to Armenian News – NEWS.am, noting that the local self-government elections held in Armenia this Sunday vividly proved this.

“There is no need to overcome the minimal threshold to win the elections in Armenia, since the ruling party easily creates privilege in the elections through falsifications and wins, allocating the other votes between those political forces, which took part in them. Of course, in these conditions it is impossible to hold free elections and the changes which were made to the Electoral Code prove to be merely meaningless: They further facilitated the process of falsifications,” the analyst said.

Manvel Sargsyan was surprised at the failure of the Armenian National Congress (ANC) in the local self-government elections.  Taking part in the elections for the first time, the political force wasn’t able to overcome the minimal threshold, while during the nationwide elections the party was able to win certain percentage of votes.  

“Not only ANC, but also other parties, which won certain percentage of votes during the nationwide elections, didn’t overcome the minimal threshold this time,” Sargsyan noted.

Sargsyan is also taken aback by the fact that the Union and Armenian Revival parties won certain percentage of votes in Vanadzor and Gyumri. “It is amazing that these recently established parties won certain percentage. All this is indicative of the fact that the elections are complex phenomena and it is unclear how people win votes. The fact is that the parties’ participation in these elections ensures the victory of the ruling party at all levels,” the analyst stressed.