Majority of Voters Support Armenia’s Constitutional Reform

Over 643,000 Armenians voted in support of the constitutional reform, which is enough for the document stipulating that Armenia goes from a presidential to a parliamentary republic, to be passed, referendum results showed Monday.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Under the proposal, the role of the president would be downgraded to a figurehead position with no veto authority, elected by parliament every seven years, instead of the current five. The president would not be able to be a member of one of the political parties and would lose the right to be re-elected.

The proposed amendments also call for the number of parliamentary seats to be reduced from 131 to 101.

Some 65 percent of voters supported the reform in a nation-wide vote on Sunday, while 30 percent opposed it, at the time the votes from 1562 polling stations out of 1997 were counted.

The proposed document can be passed if more than a half of the voters and at least a quarter of the country’s 2.5-million electorate supports it, which is 640,000 people.

According to the country’s Central Election Commission, some 50,5 percent of Armenians eligible to vote took part in the referendum.