Armenia's opposition faces arrests as it contests the ruling party's election win

YEREVAN, Armenia -- Several members of Armenia's opposition were arrested Friday while a major pro-Russia party asked the top court to annul this month’s election win by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s ruling party, alleging electoral violations and suppression of the opposition.

The opposition Strong Armenia party appealed to the Constitutional Court to invalidate election results or call a second round of voting, and denounced the arrests of opposition politicians as an assault on democracy. Several other opposition parties followed suit, similarly accusing the ruling party of forcing public sectors workers to vote for it and bribing other voters.

The Armenian authorities have denied any electoral violations and have accused the opposition of bribing voters.

The court is set to decide in two days whether to hear the case.

Final results of the June 7 vote released by the Central Election Commission showed Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party winning 49.7% of the ballot, allowing it to again form the government as it seeks to distance Armenia from Moscow and deepen ties with the West.

Observers have given the election mixed reviews. The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) said Armenian voters were offered a “genuine choice” while also noting that the campaign was “highly confrontational” and marked by allegations of electoral violations that led to many criminal cases against opposition candidates, raising a perception of “selective justice.”

Strong Armenia is led by Armenian-Russian billionaire Samvel Karapetyan, who made his fortune in Russia and has been under house arrest on charges of advocating for the government’s overthrow, accusations he has rejected as politically driven. Armenian investigators had issued six arrest warrants for members of Strong Armenia on the eve of polling day, accusing them of buying votes.

Several more opposition members were arrested Friday on similar charges of bribing voters.

Ruslan Barsegyan and Ashot Egiazaryan, who ran for parliament on Strong Armenia's ticket, were put in custody for two months pending an official probe, while Asatur Kocharyan of the opposition Armenia bloc was placed under house arrest.

A former lawmaker and critic of the government, Ruben Akopyan, also was arrested on Friday, while another opposition politician, David Kazinyan, was put behind bars on Thursday.

Strong Armenia denounced the arrests as an “attempt to completely destroy democracy in the country.”

“Investigative bodies, the prosecutor’s office, and the courts have been turned by this government into instruments for punishing and suppressing the opposition,” it said in a statement. ”We will not tolerate this and will fight to the end with the full force of the law and with determination.”

Mikayel Zolyan, an analyst and former lawmaker, described the arrests as part of the authorities' efforts to prevent attempts by the opposition to destabilize the situation in the country. "Pashinyan is showing pro-Russian forces that if they think they can manage to incite unrest and thereby achieve certain goals ... then they shouldn’t even try,” Zolyan said.

Russia, which has a military base in Armenia, has warned that Yerevan’s Western shift could have dire political and economic consequences. President Vladimir Putin has compared Armenia’s course to that of Ukraine in thinly veiled threats and suggested that Russia’s conflict with Ukraine was rooted in its bid to sign an association deal with the EU.

Moscow introduced a slew of trade sanctions in the weeks before the vote — imposing import bans on Armenian flowers, brandy, wine, fruits and more in a move described by the OSCE election monitors as “direct pressure” on Armenia’s vote. Russia said the bans were related to violations of agricultural import rules.

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Yuras Karmanau in Tallinn, Estonia contributed to this report.