5 political parties secure seats in new Karabakh parliament

PanARMENIAN.Net - The Republic of Nagorno Karabakh held its sixth parliamentary election since independence on May 3, 2015, Civilnet.am reports.

According to the Central Electoral Commission, over 70 percent of the 101,653 eligible voters of Karabakh took part in the elections. There were 206 candidates vying for a seat in the 33-person mixed-member proportional legislature – 22 seats will be filled via political party lists (proportional) while 11 are single-mandate or majoritarian seats.

While the final official results of the election for both single-mandate and majoritarian are to be released, at this time, five political parties have crossed the minimum 5 percent threshold to secure seats in the parliament. The following are the preliminary results:

The Free Motherland Party, headed by NKR Prime Minister Ara Harutyunyan received 47.5 percent of the vote; the Democratic Party of Artsakh, led by speaker of the NKR parliament Ashot Ghulyan, garnered 19.1 percent; the ARF-Dashnaktsutyun led by NKR Deputy Prime Minister Artur Aghabekyan got 18.8 percent of the vote; Movement 88, led by former deputy defense minister and former NKR presidential candidate Vitaly Balasanyan received 6.93 percent and the National Rebirth party, led by Hayk Khanumyan received 5.38 percent.

International observers from all over the world took part in the elections.