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Armenia’s new Constitution envisages that National Assembly Election should be conducted under all-proportional voting system, Armenian Minister of Justice Arpine Hovhannisyan said today at a discussion on the RA draft Electoral Code. The session was organized and hosted by OSCE Office in Yerevan.

“The provision suggested by draft Electoral Code envisages the 50/50 distribution principle of the mandates from national and regional lists.  We should speak of mandate distribution in case when a party receives 53 mandates. Considering that to be unlikely we do not exclude creation of a coalition,” Hovhannisyan said at a meeting attended by party and civil society representatives.

Referring to the new Constitution the minister reminded about the majority rule principle. “That is to say when any political party, alliance of political parties receive 51 mandates or 53% of the vote, but less than 54% of the total number of mandates, that political party, alliance of political parties shall receive as many additional mandates, so that the integral part of the per cent of mandates of that political party, alliance of political parties equals to 54 per cent. This innovation will secure the principle of the majority rule.” 

Three parties, which will form a coalition with 51% or 53 mandates, may form a National Assembly, the minister said.

Arpine Hovhannisyan then said that the new draft Electoral Code envisages each party to have a differing color ballot paper. “This will enable to see how many votes each party received when counting the votes. There will be no problems with the piles of ballot papers,” Hovhannisyan said.

On another note, the official said that voters wouldn’t be able to get the ballot papers out of voting booths and announce their vote. According to her, the ballot papers will be put in an opaque envelope and then thrown into the voting box.