On May 30, 1999, elections to the Armenian National Assembly will be held. These are the second such elections since independence was declared on September 21, 1991.

The Armenian Constitution of the Republic of Armenia stipulates that all National Assemblies, starting with the one to be formed in 1999, will be composed of 131 deputies instead of the 190 provided for in the current transitional Assembly. In accordance with the new Electoral Code, 75 deputies are to be elected in majoritarian district-wide seats and 56 deputies are to be elected for proportional party list seats. The new Assembly will begin work on June 10, 1999.

By the March 30 deadline, fifteen parties and six blocs of parties had nominated candidates to the Central Electoral Commission for proportional seats. And by the April 25 deadline, all nominated parties and blocs had submitted the required documents, including at least 30,000 supporting signatures. A total of 21 parties and blocs were officially registered by the Central Electoral Commission on April 25 for the proportional ballot. The Electoral Code requires that at least five percent of the candidates on proportional party lists must be women. In addition, blocs of parties may include non-party members.

Candidates for majoritarian, or district-wide, seats had to have been nominated by an April 5 deadline. Candidates may be nominated by either political parties or citizen initiative groups formed by at least 50 registered voters. At least 500 signatures are required in support of majoritarian candidates, and these signatures must be from voters in the given electoral district. Majoritarian candidates are registered at the Regional Electoral Commission level.

A total of 716 candidates are registered to run for majoritarian seats with the following regional, or marz, distribution: 210 in Yerevan, 42 in Aragatsotn, 59 in Ararat, 52 in Armavir, 64 in Gegkarkunik, 70 in Lori, 72 in Kotayk, 73 in Shirak, 28 in Siunik, 7 in Vayots Dzor, and 39 in Tavoush.

April 25 was the last working day for the 1995-99 Central and Regional Electoral Commissions. On April 26, a new Central Electoral Commission (CEC) and 11 Regional Electoral Commissions (REC, 10 marzes plus Yerevan) were formed. All Commissions have 13 members, and both the CEC and the RECs are formed by the same procedures.

As the Electoral Code stipulates, three members of the Commissions are appointed by the ROA Government. The five parties and blocs collecting the most number of signatures in support of their participation on the proportional party list are also given places on the Commissions. These parties and blocs are: the ARF Dashnakstutiun, the Homeland Bloc, Powerful Homeland, Rule of Law Country, and the Unity Bloc. The remaining five members represent the five parties that have factions in the current National Assembly and they are: the Armenian National Movement, Communist Party of Armenia, National Democratic Union, Shamiram, and the Union of Self-Determination.

Precinct level electoral commissions are formed in all 1,601 precincts on May 9 through 12. Members of the Precinct Electoral Commissions (PEC) will be appointed by the respective Regional Electoral Commissions – each member of the REC appoints one member of each PEC. Unlike the CEC and RECs, which function on a permanent basis, the PECs are temporary and their authorities will terminate seven days after the official publication of the election results or after the resolution of electoral disputes taken to court.

By decision of the CEC, the election campaign began on April 26 and will end at midnight on May 28. However, on May 29 each party or bloc will be provided with a final five minutes on the state-owned Armenian National Television channel. Parties and blocs running for proportional seats are entitled to equal unpaid time on state-owned mass media, which translates into a total of 60 minutes on Armenian National Television and 120 minutes on the state-owned radio channel. Parties and blocs can purchase an additional 120 minutes on state-owned television and an additional 180 minutes on state-owned radio. Purchase of broadcasting time on independent channels is not regulated.

Limits on campaign spending are set by the Electoral Code. For majoritarian candidates, the limit is around 50,000 USD. For parties running on the proportional list, the limit is around 600,000 USD.

On Election Day, May 30, the precinct polls will open at 8:00 a.m. and close at 8:00 p.m. There will be two separate ballots, one for majoritarian district-wide seats and one for proportional party seats, which will list all 21 parties and blocs along with three candidates for each one. Voters will have the opportunity to vote for "none of the candidates" on both ballots. The precinct protocols summarizing the results of the counting of ballots are submitted by the PECs to the RECs no later than 12 hours after the polls close. The RECs total the ballots for all PECs in their jurisdiction and then forward the protocols summarizing the results to the CEC no later than 22 hours after the receipt of PEC results. Based on the counts of the elections received from the REC, the CEC is to announce the preliminary results of the elections no later than 28 hours after the completion of voting. The final results of the election are to be announced by the CEC no later than 72 hours after the completion of voting and within five days if an electoral case goes to court.

Unlike previous electoral laws, the new Electoral Code provides for local independent observers to monitor the elections. The Code states that only those local NGOs working on democracy issues and the protection of human rights may apply to the CEC for accreditation as monitors. Such groups have up to ten days before Election Day for accreditation. In case a large number of organizations apply for accreditation, the CEC is entitled to give priority to those organizations that demonstrate their ability to conduct nationwide observations of the election. The CEC has the right to not accredit an organization that supports any candidate, party, or bloc.

The proportional ballot will list 15 parties and 6 blocs for a total of 30 parties, and the list includes both old and new political parties. The Democratic Party of Armenia, Union of Constitutional Rights, National Democratic Union, Union of Self-Determination, Communist Party of Armenia, and Armenian National Movement are all parties that had candidates who ran for the 1996 or 1998 Presidential Elections. And the later four have deputies in the current Parliament. In addition, the ARF Dashnakstutiun and Ramkavar Azatakan Party have been active in Armenian politics since independence. Because it was banned in December 1994, this is the first Parliamentary election in which the ARF Dashnakstutiun will participate (although it had members in the 1990-95 Supreme Soviet).

Six of the parties were founded after January 1998: Democratic Homeland, Rule of Law Country, Powerful Homeland, United Progressive Communist Party, Popular Party of Armenia and Worthy Future (which was established just two months before the 1999 election campaign started.) While the parties are new, most of their leaders are well-known due to their past political activities. Leaders of both Democratic Homeland and Rule of Law Country are former members of the Armenian National Movement Party and were members of the Republic Faction in the 1995-99 National Assembly. Vazgen Safaryan, the chairman of the United Progressive Party of Armenia, was elected deputy of the current Parliament as a member of the Communist Party of Armenia. Worthy Future’s Ludmilla Harutinian is a respected academic who served in the Soviet Duma in the 1980s. The leader of the Popular Party of Armenia (Unity Bloc), Karen Demirchyan, received about 40 percent of the vote in the second round of the 1998 Presidential Election. Demirchyan was First Secretary of the Communist Party of Armenia, SSR, from 1974-1988.

Three parties are boycotting the upcoming elections. The Liberal Democratic Party, which had six members elected in the 1995 National Assembly Elections, announced that it would not be participating in the May 30 elections as a sign of protest that fair and free elections are impossible. Parliamentary elections in 1995 and the Presidential elections of 1996 and 1998 have been severely criticized both within and outside of Armenia for their fairness. The 1996 Presidential elections ended with the government sending out tanks to quash opposition protests of vote rigging and the storming of the National Assembly building.

The upcoming Parliamentary elections are regulated by a new Electoral Code adopted just three months before the election, even though work on a new code began soon after the 1996 Presidential Elections. The new Code covers all national and local elections in Armenia. Several drafts have circulated over the years with major differences surrounding the number of proportional and majoritarian seats, the composition and formation of electoral commissions, voter registration lists, and military voting. The final draft was pushed through the NA by the Yerkrapahs, close allies of the Minister of Defense (the second candidate on the Unity Bloc list) and under protest from the opposition.