Elections in Armenia

The National Assembly consists of at least 101 seats and is elected using a two-tier party list proportional representation method.[1][2]

Half of the seats are assigned through closed lists and another half through open lists submitted in each of 13 territorial districts.

Four additional mandates are reserved national minorities, provided they are included in corresponding section of party lists. Together with this four mandates minimal number of seats reaches 105.

Parties need to pass 5% and alliances (blocs) 7% threshold respectively to be included in mandate distribution.

A party list can not include over 70% of representatives of the same sex and its every segment from the top (and a length of any multiple of 4) must include at least 25% members of each sex.

If neither party wins over 50% of mandates in the first round and no coalition with sufficient mandates is established within 6 days after the election results announcement a second round of elections will be carried out. Two best-performing political forces are allowed to participate in the second round. All mandates received as per first round will be preserved. The party which wins second round of elections will be given additional number of mandates to reach 54% of all seats.

If any party or bloc wins over 2/3 of mandates in the first round of elections sufficient additional mandates will be distributed among all other political forces represented in the parliament to ensure that at least 1/3 of all seats are held by forces other than the winning one.

This is stipulated by the Constitution requiring assignment of at least 1/3 of seats to the not ruling parties. Some argue, that when withdrawal of oppositional MPs leads to violation of that rule the ruling party shall be forced to call new snap elections. This is however not a consensus opinion and probably shall be dealt with in Constitutional Court.[3]

Due to additional seats given either to the winning political force or other ones total number of seats in National Assembly can grow above the minimal count and even exceed 200 in rare circumstances.[4]