September 2009 Constantinopolitan general election (Queen of Cities)

Parliamentary elections were held in Constantinople on September 6, 2009 following the adoption of a motion of no confidence in prime minister Akopyan and the end of a two-month-long coalition between the Liberal Reform Party and New Way. The election resulted in a victory for the Liberal Reform Party as it achieved its largest share of the vote and most number of seats since 1989, enabling it form a coalition with the weakened New Way. Due to the ongoing recession and banking crisis the left-wing populists of the Coalition of Leftist Forces, the Socialists and Radical Ecologist Party made significant gains.

Electoral system
The 200 deputies of Parliament were chosen from a single nationwide electoral district via closed-list proportional representation with a 5% threshold. Political parties were forced to respect gender parity on their electoral lists as 50% of names were to be female.

Background
The five months that had passed since the previous election were tumultuous as when it was formed the new coalition government of economist Bagrat Akopyan proposed an austerity program that included significant cuts to social spending while considerably raising income and sales taxes. Changes to social policy, such as the introduction of pension funds, were extremely controversial as the left argued that such an initiative was unconstitutional. Following the outcry over a speech by the prime minister where he argued for the need to raise the retirement age from 61 to 64 New Way broke off the coalition agreement and voted in favor of a motion of no confidence on August 3.