Former Armenian President and prime ministerial candidate of the Armenia Alliance, Robert Kocharyan, said in an interview with several media outlets that the elections “cannot be considered legitimate.”

He stated that his alliance would appeal to the Constitutional Court to challenge the election results. Although he said he has no expectations regarding the outcome, he believes the process is necessary to demonstrate to the public what happened before election day and during voting, Panorama.am reports.

Kocharyan divided the alleged violations into several categories.

“The first and most important issue, in my view, was the external support, which was unprecedented. It began with statements of support from the U.S. vice president, then from President Trump, Rubio’s airport visit accompanied by a half-hour press conference, statements by the president of the European Commission, various European leaders, and Macron’s intervention, which was unprecedented in elections. I have extensive political experience, and I have never seen anything like this. This factor alone is enough to conclude that the level of interference could have influenced the final results. That is the first category.

The second category concerns unprecedented budget expenditures that can easily be described as budgetary vote-buying during the election process. This is especially true of the pension increase, which had not been included in the budget. If such a measure had been planned, it could have been incorporated into the budget from the start. It was not. For example, a prime minister officially on vacation suddenly resolved complaints related to the driver’s license penalty-point system. This is a direct abuse of administrative resources, and I believe it should receive a criminal legal assessment, and not only this case.

This is the second category, and according to various estimates, around $1 billion was spent, a significant portion of which had not been budgeted. This can be viewed as misuse of budgetary resources during the election campaign.

Pressure on public-sector employees was widespread, and even observers recorded it.

Finally, there were repressive measures against opposition figures — detentions, arrests and criminal cases. Their scale was unprecedented. I would go even further and say that throughout all elections previously held in Armenia, there were not as many arrests, detentions and criminal proceedings combined as there were during these elections alone,” Kocharyan said.

According to him, all of these actions were intended to weaken and disrupt the work of opposition campaign headquarters.

“This category alone is sufficient to regard the elections as illegitimate because these actions clearly affected the final results,” the former president said.

Speaking about the opposition’s next steps, Kocharyan noted: “There are contacts and consultations are taking place jointly. Time will show what unified actions will look like; at this stage I cannot say. Everyone shares the same concerns, and what is happening now with the Prosperous Armenia Party’s votes is yet another extraordinary development.

The Electoral Commission adopted a decision that it simply had no authority to make. It cannot merely invalidate results at a polling station. It may organize a new vote there, but it does not have the right to invalidate the results outright.

In general, the behavior of the Central Electoral Commission throughout the night was very strange and raises serious questions. This is a continuation of the Civil Contract party. The chairman of the Central Electoral Commission is a former Civil Contract MP, and there is not even a trace of impartiality here. This raises major concerns and adds serious arguments to the perception that these elections lack legitimacy.”

Commenting on whether to take parliamentary mandates, Kocharyan said: “The opportunities are now greater in terms of the number of mandates. There is another political force that received more mandates than we did, and they are appearing with new faces. This opens a new and quite interesting opportunity for political struggle. We should also add that the government’s legitimacy will remain under question throughout this period, something that was not the case previously.”

He added that opposition votes had increased significantly.

“If we add together the dispersed votes, the majority are opposition votes. The figure exceeds 600,000, and if 10 percent of those people take to the streets, it would be enough to resolve the issue of this government within a year. The potential exists. How we use that potential depends both on us and on certain future developments,” Kocharyan said.

According to preliminary results, the votes were distributed as follows: Civil Contract — 49.825 percent, Strong Armenia — 23.281 percent, Armenia Alliance — 9.934 percent, and Prosperous Armenia — 3.996 percent. Under updated figures, Prosperous Armenia no longer surpasses the four-percent threshold required for parties to enter parliament and has requested recounts in several polling stations.

Late on June 11, the Central Electoral Commission decided to invalidate the voting results from polling stations No. 10/51 and 35/65. As a result, Prosperous Armenia lost a total of 213 votes, reducing its chances of surpassing the four-percent threshold needed for parliamentary representation.