Lawyer alleges state budget misappropriation for ruling party  election campaign

ArmInfo. There are serious grounds to believe that hundreds of millions of drams were funneled from the state budget to finance the ruling Civil Contract  Party's election campaign, as stated by lawyer Aram Orbelyan to  reporters on June 27 outside the Constitutional Court building.

Asserting that the ruling party committed numerous violations,  Orbelyan emphasized that there is concrete evidence to justify the  Constitutional Court declaring the election results invalid,  restoring the votes he claims were "stolen" from the Prosperous  Armenia Party (PAP), and ordering a repeat vote.

Among the reported irregularities, the lawyer cited the misuse of  administrative resources, discriminatory conditions for renting  campaign headquarters for the ruling party versus the opposition, a  discrepancy of approximately 30,000 between the number of voter  signatures and the actual number of votes cast, and the use of  transparent envelopes at certain polling stations.

Orbelyan also drew attention to the fact that while the Civil  Contract party operated over 500 headquarters, no employees were  officially registered for them. "Either they were afraid to  officially pay salaries to avoid the actions being classified as  electoral bribery, or the funds were paid unofficially. It is  possible that this was volunteer work, but even in that case, it  should have been reflected in the campaign expenditure report," he  stated, emphasizing that the party's expenses exceeded the legal  threshold. 

In summary, Orbelyan characterized the elections as poorly organized  and marred by numerous violations, noting that the mechanisms for  detecting such misconduct were severely limited. He also announced  that the Constitutional Court hearing will resume on June 28 at 11:00  AM.

Recall, regular parliamentary elections were held in Armenia on June  7, 2026. Voter turnout was 58.97%.  According to preliminary data  from the Central Election Commission of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan's  ruling Civil Contract party, Samvel Karapetyan's Strong Armenia bloc,  and second president Robert Kocharyan's Armenia bloc are all in  parliament. The remaining candidates scored below the required  threshold of 4% for parties and 8-10% for blocs. Notably, businessman  Gagik Tsarukyan's Prosperous Armenia party lost the 4% threshold  after the Central Election Commission adjusted the preliminary vote  counts for the June 7 parliamentary elections. Consequently, the  party initiated a recount at several polling stations, which revealed  that the party's votes had been stolen. Following this, the Central  Electoral Commission of Armenia, at its extraordinary meeting on June  11, annulled the results of polling stations No. 10/51 and No.   35/65. These are the very stations where the party received the most  votes. As a result, the party may not be included in the new  parliament.

It should be noted that on election day, from early morning,  observers and journalists reported numerous violations by the ruling  party during the voting process.

Recall, on June 19, seven political forces filed applications with  the Constitutional Court of Armenia demanding that the results of the  parliamentary elections held on June 7 be declared invalid. On June  21, the Constitutional Court decided to consolidate all cases into  one proceeding.