Pashinyan’s Civil Contract won the 7 June vote. The challenge comes from a bloc of seven forces, led by Samvel Karapetyan’s Strong Armenia alliance, and includes Prosperous Armenia and several smaller parties.
Their case is procedural. A Prosperous Armenia representative told the court that some polling stations held more ballots than voters, and that precinct tallies differed from the figures the Central Election Commission published. After a recess, the CEC head said the largest discrepancies were at four stations and that a recount had been ordered there.
The court president has said the bench is obliged to finish by 4 July. The justice minister calls the violations limited. The plaintiffs frame them as enough to change the result. A recount at a handful of stations rarely moves a national outcome, so the more likely effect is on legitimacy rather than seats.
The subplot is Karapetyan. He leads one of the challenging parties while under house arrest, and his company is fighting the state’s move to take Electric Networks of Armenia. A contested vote and a contested nationalisation now run on the same calendar, and the Constitutional Court sits at the centre of the first.