Armenia Early Parliamentary Elections: ODIHR Election Observation Mission Final Report

The 2021 early parliamentary elections in Armenia were competitive and generally well-managed within a short timeframe. They were, however, characterized by intense polarization and marred by increasingly inflammatory rhetoric among key contestants. While the legal framework is generally comprehensive, the fact that amendments were adopted so close to the elections caused some legal uncertainty. These are some of the main conclusions from the final report on the 20 June elections published today by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR).

The report offers 24 recommendations to improve the conduct of elections in Armenia and to support efforts to align them with OSCE commitments, as well as other international obligations and standards for democratic elections.

Key recommendations include:

• Ensuring that changes to the electoral legal framework are made well in advance of elections and allowing sufficient time for voter education and for electoral stakeholders to be able to familiarize themselves with the applicable rules;
• Ensuring that all regulations and clarifications on electoral procedures are comprehensive, adopted in formal sessions of the Central Election Commission and applied uniformly;
• Removing restrictions on the right to vote based on mental disability;
• Improving the laws and regulations regarding the prevention, investigation and sanctioning of misuse of state resources;
• Systematically publishing territorial election commission session schedules and decisions as well as signed protocols and results disaggregated by polling station;
• Extending requirements for impartial election coverage by public media to the entire election cycle;
• Implementing more robust efforts to curb vote-buying and pressure on voters;
• Publishing regular and detailed information on the nature and number of updates and corrections made to the voter register.

ODIHR deployed an Election Observation Mission on 17 May 2021 to observe the early parliamentary elections. All 57 participating States of the OSCE region have formally committed to following up promptly on ODIHR’s election assessments and recommendations.