(ANSA) - YEREVAN, June 20 - The polling stations opened this morning in Armenia for the early legislative elections, dangerous for Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan after the military defeat of the small Caucasus country in Nagorno-Karabakh.
The former journalist who rose to head of the government in 2018 thanks to a peaceful revolution against the old corrupt elites faces his main rival, former president Robert Kocharyan, who accuses his political opponent of incompetence and opposes himself as an experienced leader.
A recent poll by the MPG group, affiliated with the Gallup International Association, shows the Kocharyan alliance in slight advantage with 28.7% of voting intentions, and the Pashinyan party just behind, at 25.2%. After six weeks of bloody clashes in Nagorno-Karabakh, during which thousands of people lost their lives, Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a Russian-brokered ceasefire agreement in November. Under the agreement, Azerbaijan kept the conquered territories and Armenia ceded other areas of Nagorno-Karabakh and neighboring territories to it.
Also on the basis of the agreement, Russia has sent about 2,000 soldiers to Nagorno-Karabakh to ensure compliance with the truce. (HANDLE).