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Armenia
Women in decision-making positions
28%
Members of local deliberative bodies are women (409 elected women)
No woman is Head of State or Government
36%
Parliamentarians are women
15%
Ministers are women

Government organization

Armenia is a unitary republic with two spheres of government: central and local.

One tier of central government and one tier of local government composed of communities.
Central government
  • Head of State: The President of the Republic is elected by the National Assembly.
  • Head of Government: The Prime Minister is the candidate nominated by the parliamentary majority to be elected by the National Assembly and appointed by the President of the Republic.
  • Legislative body: The National Assembly is a unicameral legislature whose members are directly elected by voters.
  • Executive body: The Government consists of the Prime Minister, the deputy prime ministers, and ministers proposed by the Prime Minister to be appointed by the President of the Republic.
Local government
  • Organization: Local government is organized into one tier of 502 community-level local government units.
  • Competencies: Local government is responsible for adopting its budget, regulations, by-laws and sub-legislative normative legal acts, setting local taxes, duties and fees, disposing of community property and approving community development programs.
  • Ministerial oversight: Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure

Overview of local government

Local government composition
Community-level government (համայնքներ)

Deliberative body: The community council is composed of 5-65 elected members. The community mayor is elected to serve as the chairperson of the community council; the community mayor is also vested with executive powers. In communities of over 4,000 inhabitants, the community mayor is a deliberating member of the council. In smaller communities, the mayor has only an advisory role.

Executive body: The community mayor, assisted by one or more deputies, is the executive at the community level of government.

Local government elections
Electoral system

Electoral system for community councils: mixed (proportional representation (closed list) in large communities; majority/plurality (single non-transferable vote) in small communities)

  • For community council elections in the communities of over 4,000 inhabitants, a proportional electoral system is used. The community is one multi-mandate constituency; each voter has one vote.
  • For community council elections in the communities of up to 4,000 voters, a single non-transferable vote electoral system is used. The community represents one multi-mandate constituency; the candidates with the highest number of ballots are elected. Each voter has one vote.

Electoral system for community mayors: majority/plurality (first-past-the-post) or indirect elections

  • For the community mayor elections in the communities of over 4,000 inhabitants, if one party participating in the community council election receives more than 50% of the seats, the person at the top of the list of candidates of that party is elected as community mayor. If no party gets more than 50% of the seats in the community council, the mayor is elected by and from the community council members.
  • For all other community mayor elections, a majority electoral system is used, on a separate ballot from the community council elections; the candidate who received the most votes is elected the community mayor. In the event of a single candidate, the community mayor is elected if receiving more than half of the votes. A single-mandate majoritarian constituency is formed in the territory of the community; each voter has one vote.

Source: Electoral Code, 2016 (amended through 2022), articles 67, 104.1, 142.2

Quotas

Gender quotas: Legislated candidate quotas, ranking/placement, sanctions

  • For the election of the community councils of over 4,000 inhabitants, the number of representatives of each sex in any trio (1-3, 1-6, 1-9, etc.) and so on until the end of the list, from the first number of the electoral list of each of the parties, shall not exceed 70%. In case of inaccuracies in the submitted documents, the party has 48 hours to eliminate the inaccuracies or else the registration of the electoral list is rejected.
  • For the election of the community councils of over 4,000 inhabitants, if all seats in the party go to members of the same sex, the mandate of the last candidate in the order of the list is given to the candidate with the lowest number of the unrepresented gender on the list, if any.

Additional quotas: No

Source: Electoral code, 2016 (amended through 2022), articles 130 and 132

Term of elections
  • Term length: 5 years. Local elections are held every year on a rolling basis.
  • Last local elections: 2022
  • Next local elections: 2023
Electoral management body

Central Electoral Commission of the Republic of Armenia; territorial electoral commissions

National legal framework on local government
National legal framework
  • Constitution of the Republic of Armenia, 1995 (amended through 2020);
  • Electoral Code of the Republic of Armenia, 2016 (amended through 2022);
  • Law on Local Self-Government of the City of Yerevan, 2008 (amended through 2022);
  • Law on Local Self-Government, 2002 (amended through 2021).
Constitutional provisions on local government

There are constitutional provisions that establish local government in Armenia. According to Articles 179 and 180 of the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia of 1995 (amended through 2020), “local self-government is guaranteed in the Republic of Armenia as one of the essential foundations of democracy. Local self-government is the right and ability of local self-government bodies to solve public issues of community significance under its own responsibility, in the interests of the community residents, and in accordance with the Constitution and the laws. Local self-government shall be exercised in the communities. A community is the whole of the population of one or several settlements.”

Legislative provisions on local government

The National Assembly is responsible for establishing the national legal framework on local government. The key piece of legislation that regulates local government is the Law on Local Self-Government of 2002 (amended through 2021), which regulates the state-local relations of self-governing bodies and defines the concept of local self-government in the Republic of Armenia, the principles, bodies, and obligatory problems of the community, the powers of local self-government bodies and their legal, economic, and financial bases and guarantees, and the peculiarities of local self-government in Gyumri-Vanadzor communities.

Sources:

1. UN Women: Data on share of women in local government as of 1 January 2023.

2. UN Women: Information on Head of State and Government as of 3 October 2023.

3. Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU): Data on share of women in the single/lower chamber of parliament as of 1 January 2023.

4. IPU and UN Women: Data on share of women in ministerial positions as of 1 January 2023.

5. Information on local government organization as of 1 January 2023.