Armenian court rejects challenge to PM’s re-election

YEREVAN: Armenia’s top court on Saturday threw out a challenge by opposition parties to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s victory in snap parliamentary polls last month.

Although Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party won the June vote by a landslide in polls internationally praised as well run and competitive, opposition parties have alleged electoral irregularities.

An alliance of parties led by ex-president Robert Kocharyan asked the constitutional court to overturn the election results.

On Saturday, the court rejected the demand and “ruled to uphold the central election commission’s June 27 decision on summing up the parliamentary elections’ results,” said the court’s chair Arman Dilanyan.

Pashinyan called the early vote to defuse a political crisis that engulfed Armenia following last year’s military defeat to Azerbaijan.

Six weeks of fighting over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region in September and November 2020 claimed more than 6,500 lives. The eventual Russian-brokered ceasefire also saw Yerevan cede to Baku swathes of territory it had controlled for decades.

Opposition parties have accused Pashinyan of mishandling the war and the truce terms were seen in Armenia as a national humiliation, leading to protracted street protests.