Pashinyan at PACE: Electoral bribery by certain forces remains a  prevalent issue in Armenia

ArmInfo. Since the 2018 popular revolution in Armenia, the government has not even attempted to falsify the elections, RA Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan assured the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe.

According to Pashinyan, during this period, two parliamentary  elections and local self-government elections have been held in  Armenia. "The 2018 and 2021 parliamentary elections were assessed by  the international community as free, competitive, and in line with  democratic standards, which was, in fact, unprecedented in our  history. There were no protests related to the local elections  results; opposition parties won in a number of communities, which was  essentially impossible before the 2018 revolution," the Prime  Minister stated.

Furthermore, he noted, the concept of a "post-electoral process" has  disappeared from Armenia's political life, where people associated  change with post-electoral processes, knowing that the elections  would be rigged by the authorities.

Additionally, he emphasized that electoral democracy in Armenia is  not without its challenges. "The practice of distributing electoral  bribes by certain forces in Armenia continues. The problem here is  not only that law enforcement agencies have to expend enormous effort  to detect such cases, but also the lack of practical mechanisms to  determine the extent to which electoral bribes influence election  results. As a result, practical mechanisms for excluding forces  distributing electoral bribes from the political and electoral  process are either absent or unclear, and the implementation of such  mechanisms could be perceived as an attempt to control the  elections," Pashinyan noted. According to the Prime Minister, in this  case, the presence in parliament or local government bodies of  individuals who obtained mandates through electoral bribes is  perceived as democracy's vulnerability.