Armenian National Assembly Deputy Speaker Ruben Rubinyan has stated that everyone involved in distributing election bribes should be arrested, arguing that it is not enough to detain only local intermediaries and that investigators should “go all the way to the top.”

“I call on our law enforcement agencies to go all the way to the top, because it is not enough to arrest a few local vote brokers. They must go higher. For me, and for any reasonable person, it is obvious that a local vote broker could not simply wake up one day and decide on their own to distribute election bribes to residents of their building,” he said, according to 1lurer.am .

According to Rubinyan, it is evident that the intermediary received the money from others.

“It is obvious that someone provided that person with the funds. It is obvious that instructions were given and they were told: ‘Here is the money, go and distribute it so that people vote for us.’ For me, it is obvious that responsibility lies with three political forces — the Strong Armenia Party, the Hayastan Alliance, and the Prosperous Armenia Party. It is obvious to me that the leadership of those parties organized and directed these vote-buying schemes, and I call on law enforcement bodies to uncover this system,” Rubinyan said.

He also noted that the Civil Contract party received more than 720,000 votes.

“We received more votes in absolute numbers than we did in 2021. In percentage terms, we received enough votes to form a government on our own. I want to congratulate all of us on the results of free and fair elections in Armenia for the third consecutive time,” he said.

On June 14, the final results of the June 7 parliamentary elections were published. Civil Contract received 726,819 votes, or 49.7456 percent. Strong Armenia won 340,006 votes, or 23.2710 percent, while the Hayastan Alliance received 144,983 votes, or 9.9231 percent. The Prosperous Armenia Party failed to pass the 4 percent threshold, receiving 58,287 votes, or 3.9893 percent.

Civil Contract will hold 64 parliamentary seats, including three seats allocated to representatives of national minorities. Strong Armenia will have 29 seats, including one seat reserved for an Assyrian representative, while the Hayastan Alliance will hold 12 seats.