Many cases brought against Strong Armenia dismissed, but nothing  announced - lawyer 

ArmInfo. While the Constitutional Court continues to intensively work on lawsuits filed  by seven political forces to invalidate the parliamentary election  results, the ruling Civil Contract party is resolving issues related  to its positions. This was stated by lawyer Aram Vardevanyan,  representing the interests of the opposition "Strong Armenia" bloc in  the Constitutional Court, at a court hearing on July 1.

According to Vardevanyan, the ruling party must understand that all  these decisions could be of no value if the Constitutional Court  invalidates the election results, orders a runoff, or establishes a  new procedure for distributing parliamentary mandates. "Could all  this negatively impact the overall situation in the country?  Yes, it  could! But the Constitutional Court is a body above the government,  and it should be," the lawyer emphasized.

He recalled that on April 7, two months before the elections, the  authorities decided to amend the Electoral Code so that the name of  Strong Armenia party leader Samvel Karapetyan would not be used, much  less mentioned on the ballots. "During the entire election process,  Samvel Karapetyan was under house arrest.  Against this backdrop, a  natural question arises: if another political force had been in the  same situation, would the election results have been the same as  those presented by the Central Electoral Commission? Let me express  my point of view: no, the results would have been completely  different," the party representative emphasized.

He also addressed the question of a Constitutional Court judge who  raised the issue of pre-election bribes and their influence on the  electoral process. Vardevanyan noted that he sincerely wishes such a  phenomenon would not exist, but when extreme poverty is rampant in  the country, a pre-election bribe of 10,000 drams has a significant  impact on election results and the will of the voter. "Yes, that's  true; it's effectively a pre-election bribe," Vardevanyan said,  alluding to the 10,000 drams increase in citizens' pensions before  the election itself. Instead, the authorities have used their entire  arsenal to bring bribery charges against the opposition, initiating  numerous criminal cases and detaining and arresting their  representatives. Meanwhile, many cases brought against "Strong  Armenia" have already been dropped, but nothing has been reported.