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Eurasia
December 7, 2018 www.intellinews.com I Page 25
Pashinian’s coalition heads for snap election landslide in Armenia
bne IntelliNews
The My Step Alliance headed by Armenia’s acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian has maintained its strong lead in the polls as the December 9 snap election approaches, indicating a radical change in the composition of the country’s next parliament.
Pashinian, the former anti-corruption activist and protest leader appointed prime minister after
the Armenian velvet revolution of April and May, resigned in October to pave the way for fresh elec- tions. He says he wants the parliament to reflect the new political realities of the small, impover- ished nation of 2.9mn.
Attempts by his political rivals to adopt legislation that would block or at least delay the snap elec- tion were thwarted when thousands of Pashinian’s supporters gathered outside the parliament im- mediately after the vote in an echo of the revolu- tionary events of the spring. His opponents backed down, and Pashinian submitted his resignation on October 16, securing a date for the vote in De- cember. The standoff showed he still commanded support from the street and that is likely to be reflected in the ballot boxes in two days’ time.
Polls indicate his hopes of a starkly different make-up of the parliament will be realised, with
a dramatic landslide expected for the My Step Alliance. The relatively few and far between polls from reliable international pollsters in the weeks before the election have consistently indicated
the alliance was on track to take more than two- thirds of the vote—far outperforming the result of the Republican Party (HHK), which had dominated
The optimism generated by the spring's Armenian people power revolution appears to be holding.
Armenian politics for two decades, in the last general election in 2017.
The latest poll from Gallup International Associa- tion, carried out at the beginning of December, showed 69.4% of respondents planned to vote for the My Step Alliance, indicating that the party was holding on to the support it enjoyed in October and November. As in earlier polls, other parties were trailing far behind, with the runner up, the Prosperous Armenia Party on just 5.7% with less than one-tenth of the support enjoyed by the My Step Alliance. The HHK was recording a dismal 1.3%. Confirming how important the election is to most Armenians, 75.5% of respondents said they planned to vote.
“If opinion polling is even close to being correct, the My Step Alliance will likely command a large majority in the National Assembly after the elec- tion,” Fitch Solutions analysts wrote in a com- ment on December 5.
This would make a big different to Pashinian when embarking on his agenda of substantial political change. The protests this spring were sparked by the move of outgoing president Serzh Sargsyan to the newly empowered prime minister position but also stemmed from deep-rooted discontent over the high levels of corruption in the country, as well as cronyism, inequality, poverty and low living standards.
While Pashinian started initiating changes as prime minister, he was hampered by his relatively weak position in parliament; his alliance had only