Quantcast
Armenia’s acting PM’s party leads parliamentary vote, RIA cites electoral commission – Metro US

Armenia’s acting PM’s party leads parliamentary vote, RIA cites electoral commission

Leader of Civil Contract party Nikol Pashinyan casts his vote
Leader of Civil Contract party Nikol Pashinyan casts his vote during the snap parliamentary election in Yerevan

MOSCOW (Reuters) – Armenia’s acting prime minister, Nikol Pashinyan, and his Civil Contract party took an early lead as votes were counted after a parliamentary election on Sunday, the RIA news agency reported, citing the electoral commission.

Armenians were voting in a snap election the government called seeking to end a political crisis that erupted after ethnic Armenian forces lost a bloody six-week war against Azerbaijan last year and ceded territory in and around the Nagorno-Karabakh region.

Pashinyan’s party had 58% of the vote in the first figures published by the Central Election Commission (CEC), versus 22% for Armenia Alliance, led by former president Robert Kocharyan, RIA reported.

(Reporting by Alexander Marrow; Editing by Edmund Blair)