ArmInfo.On October 29 at an extraordinary meeting, the National Assembly of Armenia again discusses the draft amendments in the Electoral Code and in a package of related documents. On October 22, at the extraordinary meeting of the National Assembly, the draft did not receive the necessary number of votes.
The document submitted by the government, being a constitutional law, was to be adopted by 3/5 of the votes of deputies. Meanwhile, only 56 MPs voted in favor of adopting a package with three "against".
This time, the ''Tsarukyan Bloc'' faction initiated the amendments. The representative of the faction Gevorg Poghosyan stressed that the elections to the National Assembly of Armenia will be held exclusively on proportional lists, the current rating system of elections is completely excluded. The formation of coalitions is given 10 days instead of 6 at the present time. Passing threshold will decrease by one percent, with the result that for batches it will be 4%, and for blocs 6%. It is also planned that the minimum number of political forces that have entered the parliament, regardless of the threshold, will be 4, not 3, that is, the parliament will be formed from at least 4 political forces. Gevorg Poghosyan also said that the size of the electoral pledge is decreasing, which instead of 10 million AMD will make 7.5 million drams. The representation of women in parliament should be at least 30% instead of the current 25%, four places will be reserved for representatives of national minorities. Up to 40% of non-party people can be represented in party lists instead of 30% at present.
The rules of election campaigning have been slightly changed, and ample opportunities for campaigning at the expense of public resources have been given; free airtime has increased, it has been established that television debates should be held, and at least one of them should be at the level of the first list numbers.
A norm was also established according to which the employees of the Armenian armed forces should have more opportunities to get acquainted with the electoral programs, including, they should be able to watch TV debates.