Reports

This report is published at a time of Russian invasion of Ukraine. It underscores the central role of freedom of expression in the maintenance of democracy at home, as well as international order and security abroad. This report provides the analysis and conclusions on the state of freedom of expression and the work of the media in seven countries of the EU Eastern Neighborhood, namely Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Georgia, Moldova, Ukraine, and Russia.

In the wake of the early parliamentary election on June 20, 2021, 54% of the electorate will have a second chance to vote during the autumn 2021 local elections. Several communities have already held their city council elections on October 17 and November 14, but the biggest wave will take place on December 5.

According to the Akanates observation mission, election day saw engaged and active participation from citizens. The process was fundamentally organized, smooth, and without serious violations. Nevertheless, a number of polling stations had a palpable level of tension, mostly due to the presence of unauthorized persons inside the polling station. Although violations were noted by representatives for multiple parties and alliances, the majority of violations involved representatives of the Armenia Alliance. The PVT projection for final turnout is 49.3%.

On April 1, a marathon parliamentary session removed district seats from Armenia’s Electoral Code. Eliminating district seats was the flagship policy in the electoral reform bill brought forward in October 2018 by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s first government. That bill failed to attract enough votes to pass, but now it has finally been accomplished. What is so problematic about district seats? What electoral reforms come next? Find out in our latest Policy Alert.

In recent years, election experts observed significant increase of spending on election campaigns. The transparency of party and campaign financing became one of the key requirements to ensure the integrity of today's election processes. To raise awareness about the urgent need to increase transparency, our newest comparative study analyzes the regulation and oversight of political party and campaign financing in the EU - Eastern Partnership and Russian Federation.

MPs from all three parliamentary factions have sponsored a bill that seeks to change how municipal councils and mayors are elected. Specifically, mayors in the largest cities and towns will no longer be directly elected but chosen by city councils, who will also be given the power to remove them mid-term. The closed party list proportional representation system used in the three largest cities in Armenia would be expanded to all communities with more than 4000 registered voters.