The recent parliamentary elections in Armenia recorded sweeping victory by the current authorities, the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) and its coalition partner and rival Prosperous Armenia. These two, along with the third member of the current coalition Orinats Yerkir (which was the only ruling party seeing worse results against 2007 vote), grabbed 112 out of 131 mandates of Armenia's National Assembly.

Parliamentary elections were held in Armenia on May 6, and people are now assessing their outcomes, pondering over expectations from the new “elects”; meanwhile, the political forces are summing up the results and considering their future moves and potential alliances. So, I decided to avail of the current political lull and sum up my own voting outcomes, sharing my views on each of the race participants.

The parliamentary elections are over in Armenia. The race, assessed as original primaries for presidential elections in 2013, yielded rather unexpected results, with the ruling coalition’s crushing victory recorded as the most significant outcome.

This year, Armenia challenges its citizens to capture, in real time, election fraud with their new online election monitoring program, iDitord.

Ahead of the parliamentary vote due on May 6, Armenia’s political forces boosted their activity on the internet, particularly in Facebook.

Today, on April 7, Orinats Yerkir coalition party held a rally at Yerevan’s Liberty Square, a subsequent rally serving the “information” and not pre-election purpose. Though the election campaign has not officially launched, Armenia’s political forces have actively started holding large spectrum of events aimed at coaxing voters.

March 22 was the last day for the political forces to submit their proportional lists to the Central Electoral Commission of Armenia to participate in the parliamentary elections due on May 6.

The Council of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) approved on March 18 its electoral lists comprising 250 candidates standing for the parliamentary elections due on May 6. The list is quite interesting, to say the least. For instance, the ex-speaker of the National Assembly and head of RPA election office Hovik Abrahamyan is placed the second while Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan comes the third. However, the main surprise of the list is the abundance of “strangers”, representatives of other parties or new members of RPA.

The past week was rich in various political events. On the one hand, heated debates developed in the parliament on the bill “On legal regime of the state of emergency” and over voting on the opposition’s bill proposing shift to 100% proportional system of elections to the National Assembly; on the other hand, the Armenian National Congress held its first rally in 2012 scheduled for February 17. In addition, some parties held rallies as part of their election campaigns for the upcoming parliamentary elections.

Environmental activists appeared to be one of key newsmakers in Armenia's social life over the past year.