Urgent mayors: elections were held in Armenia in a key city

Elections were held in the Vagharshapat community in Armenia. It is interesting because on its territory there is a monastery and the city of Etchmiadzin, where the residence of Catholicos Garegin II is located. It was expected that the opposition would be able to give battle to the ruling party. In the end, however, Pashinyan's supporters won the majority in the local council, they will be able to safely elect their mayor. Details can be found in the Izvestia article.

The city and the temple

Vagharshapat is the fourth largest city in Armenia, with about 50,000 people living here. The city is considered the spiritual capital of the country, it is home to the largest monastery of Etchmiadzin, the cathedral, built in the III-IV centuries AD, as well as the residence of Catholicos Garegin II.

For seven years, Diana Gasparyan, a representative of the ruling Civil Contract party, has been the mayor of Vagharshapat. Her reign was accompanied by a number of scandals. The media reported that the relatives of the official are conducting illegal construction in the city, and the father-in-law has signed a contract with the administration for gas supplies worth 13 million drams ($ 35 thousand). As a result, Gasparyan resigned in the spring, after which elections were scheduled.

The election campaign was extremely important for the whole country. Firstly, national parliamentary elections will be held in Armenia in six months, and in such circumstances, the vote in Vagharshapat was supposed to be a kind of show of strength. Secondly, there has been a struggle between secular and religious authorities in the country for many months, and the expression of will in the spiritual capital was supposed to show which side the voters' sympathies are on.

On election day, November 16, there were plenty of colorful gestures and statements from the church and the opposition. Thus, Catholicos Garegin II was one of the first to come to the polling station, hoping, apparently, to inspire his supporters in this way (Izvestia has footage of the visit to the polling station). Khachik Manukyan, a representative of the Rodina party, told reporters that "the people have finally come out of their stupor," while other associations discussed who they were ready to join the future ruling coalition with.

The result, however, turned out to be discouraging. After counting the votes, the Central Election Commission of Armenia announced that the ruling party "Civil Contract" received 15.2 thousand votes, which amounted to 48.5% of the number of those who voted. As a result, Prime Minister Pashinyan's supporters will receive 19 out of 33 seats in the local parliament and will be able to appoint their mayor alone, without forming a coalition.

Pressure and "liberation"

There are several reasons for the opposition's defeat. On the one hand, back in the summer, the authorities enlarged the Vagharshapat electoral district, joining the communities of Khoy and Voskeat, where the ruling party's positions are traditionally strong. In addition, the opposition talks about pressure and administrative resources. For example, the placement of posters in illegal places and the involvement of school teachers in campaigning were recorded.

Outside analysts state serious problems among the opponents of the current authorities. It is noted that the protest forces do not put forward their own political agenda, but only criticize the actions of Pashinyan and his team. It is also emphasized that seven opposition groups participated in the elections at once, which could interfere with each other and confuse voters.

Another complaint concerns the passivity of opposition groups. During the election campaign, many of them talked about a future victory, but did not do much to achieve the result. At the same time, the ambitious "In Our Way" movement, which was created by businessman Samvel Karapetyan, who was imprisoned, did not participate in the elections at all, but declared support for "any force opposed to the government."

As a result, now Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan does not hide his joy at the victory. According to his statement, the current result was a "ringing prelude" to the parliamentary elections next year. He also noted that this success will be important for the "liberation" of Etchmiadzin, that is, the removal of Catholicos Garegin II, which official Yerevan has been seeking for six months.

Opposition commentators explain that everything is not so clear. The representative of the Wings of Unity party, David Ananyan, claims that the "Civil Contract" won due to "electoral mathematics." According to him, the ruling party gained only 21% of the total number of voters in Vagharshapat, it gained the majority due to the redistribution of votes cast for those parties that did not overcome the threshold.

In turn, the editor-in-chief of the newspaper "Graparak" Amine Ohanyan called the victory of the "Civil Contract" Pyrrhic. "It feels like the current authorities have forced Azerbaijan to retreat from our territory or return prisoners and Artsakh [Karabakh], raised pensions or lowered prices. No, we only got 15,000 votes in a small community. A normal government would not be proud of such a thing," she said.

Interestingly, on November 17, the government's confrontation with the church and the opposition continued. The country's Prosecutor General's Office announced that the case against the brother and nephew of the Catholicos, who are accused of hooliganism and obstruction of the election campaign in Vagharshapat, has been brought to court. On the same day, the Public Services Regulatory Commission stripped Samvel Karapetyan's Electric Networks of Armenia company of its license to distribute electricity in the country.

What the experts say

Caucasian scholar Artur Ataev believes that the elections in Vagharshapat clearly showed the political preferences of the Armenian society.

— The diagnosis is the same. The opposition does not have a bright leader who would be a symbol of the struggle, who would embody Pashinyan's opponents. The second point is that there are no messages, no alternative proposals. You can criticize the current authorities a lot, but at least they have a set of ideas that voters can understand. They profess a course towards improving relations with the Turkic world, rapprochement with the West, and distancing themselves from Russia. In general, we can say that the current campaign has refuted some of the theses about the crisis of confidence in Pashinyan, the rating of the ruling party remains quite high," he notes.

Armenian political analyst Tigran Kocharyan argues that the election result is not a failure of the opposition.

— The key during this campaign was the enlargement of the Vagharshapat constituency. It was the affiliated communities that gave the majority to the ruling party, and the opposition has a much better result within the borders of the city of Etchmiadzin. In addition, many violations were recorded, but even under such conditions they could not get more than half of the votes. I also note the good result of the Victory bloc, which got the second result, although other opposition parties should think about their tactics and strategy," he explains.