YEREVAN. – Armenia’s opposition Heritage party Chairman and ex-Foreign Minister Raffi Hovannisian, who is among the leaders of the Ohanyan-Raffi-Oskanian (ORO) Bloc arrived at a polling station in Yerevan to vote in the parliamentary elections.

Hovannisian noted that he cast his ballot for the future of Armenia in the name of heroes of our homeland.

Concerning electoral process in general, Raffi Hovhannisian said: “We have already said that  the process is beyond the law. Now we will wait for the end of the day, we will consider the results. Violations took place, both in the pre-election period, and today. We will present all package of these signals to public. It is one of the purposes of our fight. We will not sit back. And we must carry out this fight by all possible constitutional ways”.

Regarding concrete violations during electoral process, Raffi Ovannisian emphasized: “All we know that Armenia does not have nationwide database of fingerprints. As for electoral bribery, a part of these should be disclosed by citizens. Possibly, this time our assessments will differ a little from the assessments of previous elections, we should live in our country with the hope that, finally, we will have the Republic of Armenia, but not dominating party.”

To note, the ORO bloc is led by former Defense Minister Seyran Ohanyan, and ex-FMs Raffi Hovannisian and Vartan Oskanian.

Armenia is holding a parliamentary election for the first time since new Constitution was approved through a referendum in December 2015. The new National Assembly will have 105 deputies, four of whom—representatives of ethnic minorities.

A total of 2,009 election precincts are open all through the country. This voting will be the only national one in the next five years, as Armenia is transitioning to a parliamentary republic.

Five political parties and four blocs are running for parliament. Political parties have to get five percent of votes, whereas the blocs need seven percent to be elected to the National Assembly of Armenia.