Lena Nazaryan, a member of the “Yelq” party, suggested increasing the number of women in the National Assembly to 40% 08.08.2018

“Armenpress” talked to the member of “Yelq” faction, member of the “Civil Contract” party board Lena Nazaryan about the Electoral Code, the number of women deputies in the parliament and other issues on the agenda.

– Your package of proposals is already in the Government. How do you think they will be accepted by the executive?

• Basically, all the proposals are good and the Government should justify their opinion whether they are realistic for the time being. There are two questions that are controversial regarding open and closed proportional electoral systems. Only one of them should be accepted.

• “Exit” and “Tsarukyan” factions proposed to fix the closed proportional electoral system in the new Electoral Code. What is its advantage over the open proportional system?

• In the case of open proportional representation, the party submits an alphabetical list to the Central Electoral Commission and, in the future, when the voter prefers a candidate on the opposite side of the ballot, candidates who have already received many votes have the opportunity to get the mandate, regardless of the place occupied. In the case of a closed proportional representation, the party presents the list in its preferred sequence, and the more percentage it receives, the more people go through the list according to the NA.

• Would you recommend the proportion of male and female MPs to parliament to 60-40%? Political parties are ready to have so many women deputies in the parliament today.

• Taking into account the new political situation, many women want to be included in the party list, participate in the elections and work in the National Assembly. Previously they avoided it, because there was no internal democracy in the parties, and women were concerned about the mechanism of coming to the party, getting out of the place on the list and receiving mandates.

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