The government has approved—at Thursday’s Cabinet meeting—the bills on making amendments and additions to the law on Armenia’s criminal code, on making an addition to the country’s criminal procedure code, and on making amendments and additions to the administrative offenses’ code.

With these bills, it is envisioned to toughen accountability for electoral fraud.

At the Cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan underscored the approval of this package of proposed laws and noted that, as a result, they will rule out vote buying in Armenia.

“In this sense, the [capital city] Yerevan Council of Elders’ elections [on September 23] are a very important test for us,” Pashinyan added, in particular. “And we need to get [an] ‘excellent [grade]’ in that ‘test.’”

The above-said bills will be debated on at the National Assembly special session to be convened on September 6.