YEREVAN. – Bright Armenia is the third force in the parliament and has been advocating for snap elections for more than a month now, and has made concessions on all its preconditions posited. Edmon Marukyan, chairman of the opposition Bright Armenia Party (BAP) and head of the Bright Armenia faction in the National Assembly, on Wednesday told this to reporters in parliament, and referring to the statement of NA vice speaker Alen Simonyan—a member of the majority My Step faction in parliament—that in his opinion, the BAP, as well as virtually 80 percent of the opposition, do not want snap parliamentary elections, as they know their actual popularity rating, and therefore may not have seats in the next parliament.

According to Marukyan, they proposed to introduce in the new Electoral Code the mechanism of voting by open proportional electoral lists—that is, to have a “rating” election system—, but in the whole country and the voters be able make changes—with their ballots—to the electoral lists submitted by the political parties.

However, as per Marukyan, this approach has not been accepted by the government, and the ruling power is in favor of a closed proportional election system. "Now, we either go to the election under the current [Electoral] Code, or they [the ruling power] want it to be under the [Electoral] Code presented by them. So, they have to vote quickly, adopt the [Electoral] Code they want. And let them not expect the opposition to vote for the [Electoral] Code it opposes. (…). And now, there is a condition posited to vote for the Electoral Code. If we [the parliamentary] do that, too, they will want my watch now," Edmon Marukyan added.