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Parliamentary elections will be held in Armenia on 2 April 2017. They will be the first elections after the constitutional referendum in 2015 that approved reforms to become a parliamentary republic.
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Election System
National Assembly (Armenia) consists of at least 101 seats and is elected with a two-tier Party list proportional representation method. It reserves 50% of votes casted in favor of each party to be distributed through party lists.
Out of these 4 mandates will be assigned to national minorities, if they are included on party lists. A party list can not include over 70% of representatives of the same sex. Any top-segment of a party list from (and a length of any multiple of 4) must include at least 25% members of each sex.
Another 50% of votes received by each party will be distributied among their territorial lists submited in 13 multi-member electoral precincts.
If neither party wins over 50% of mandates in the first round and no coalition is built within 6 days after the election results announcement a second round of elections will be carried out. Two best-placed parties (or blocs) are allowed to participate in the second round. All mandates received as per first round will be preserved. The party which wins second round of elections will be given sufficient number of additional mandates ensuring it gains 54% all seats.
If any party or bloc wins over 2/3 of mandates in the first round of elections sufficient additional mandates will be distributed among all other parties to ensure that at least 1/3 of all seats are given to parties (blocs) other than the winning one.
Due to additional seats given to winning party or other parties total number of seats in National Assembly (Armenia) can be higher and reach about 200 in rare circumstances.
Partis need to pass 5% and blocs 7% threshold respectively to be included in mandate distribution.
Earlier parliament composition
At the time of the previous elections in 2012, the National Assembly had 131 seats, of which 41 were elected in single-member constituencies by first-past-the-post voting and 90 elected by proportional representation in a single nationwide constituency with an electoral threshold of 5%.
However, a referendum in December 2015 approved constitutional amendments reducing the minimal number of seats in the National Assembly to 101, all of which will be elected by proportional representation.
List of participating parties and blocs
The following parties and election blocs will participate in the 2017 election to the National Assembly:
Opposition bloc ELQ
On December 12, 2016 three opposition parties (Civil Contract, Bright Armenia, and Republic) signed a memorandum of joint political activity, which includes joining forces to become a electoral bloc in the 2017 parliamentary election and Yerevan Council election. According to the memorandum, the parties will strive for a "European model of the democratic, rule-of-law and social state" in Armenia and are strongly committed to the country’s sovereignty.