YEREVAN. – Past daily of Armenia writes: The NA [National Assembly] [majority] My Step faction recently made, without the participation of the opposition factions, an "express" amendment to the Electoral Code. More precisely, the rating [electoral] system was abolished and nothing else.

The fact that only the rating has been removed has angered and disappointed some political forces. It is mainly about small units attached to [PM] Nikol Pashinyan. The thing is that these parties do not even have a theoretical chance to overcome the 5-percent barrier [to win parliamentary seats], plus they do not have candidates to be nominated by the rating electoral system.

Therefore, Nikol Pashinyan had promised those parties to also reduce the [parliament-]passing threshold, making [it] 4 or even 3 percent, instead expecting that they will actively campaign for the abolition of the rating, [electoral system] supporting the authorities.

Those close-Pashinyan units actively did their part of the work, but Nikol Pashinyan changed only the electoral system, which was convenient to him, leaving the [parliament-]passing threshold the same. In fact, those units find that Pashinyan "deceived" them.

According to Past newspaper’s information, when he was conveyed the dissatisfaction of those "deceived," Pashinyan said, ‘Let the parliamentary opposition submit a proposal, we will see;’ that is, he is actually distancing the issue from himself toward the opposition, whereas he himself has promised that they will make a change to reduce the [parliament-]passing threshold.