Civil Contract lost control of the community comprising the formerly industrial town of Alaverdi and over two dozen smaller towns and villages as a result of local elections held in September 2022. It fell short of an overall majority in the local council empowered to appoint the community head.
The opposition Aprelu Yerkir party secured such a majority and installed its member Arkadi Tamazian as mayor after teaming up with former President Levon Ter-Petrosian’s Armenian National Congress (HAK) party. The HAK won only one seat in the council.
One of the council members representing Aprelu Yerkir, Simon Zakharov, unexpectedly defected from the party in July, putting Tamazian’s position at serious risk. Zakharov denied media reports that he was co-opted by his pro-government colleagues.
But he did back earlier this week a Civil Contract bid to replace Tamazian through a vote of no confidence. Zakharov’s defection gave Pashinian’s party enough votes to do that.
Under Armenia law, local councils cannot discuss and vote on motions of censure more than once a year. Aprelu Yerkir tried to take advantage of this provision in October, initiating a vote of no confidence in Tamazian which its councilors never planned to back. Civil Contract representatives say the initiative is null and void because the local council did not make a quorum needed for a formal debate on it.
Tamazian on Friday denied that and said it is the ruling party’s motion that is illegal. He said he will therefore not convene a special session of the council demanded by its pro-government members keen to unseat him.
“Let them challenge my decision in court,” the Alaverdi mayor told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Tamazian said later in the day that he has asked the Armenian government to disband the local council and call a snap election in the community. The law allows but does not require the government to do so.
Civil Contract’s local leader, Davit Ghumashian, dismissed the request. He said the Alaverdi council will meet early next week to remove Tamazian and elect him as new mayor.
“Our initiative is absolutely legal,” added Ghumashian.
Ghumashian is a former member of former President Serzh Sarkisian’s Republican Party of Armenia (HHK). He was elected mayor of a village close to Alaverdi on the HHK ticket in 2017 a year before Pashinian toppled Sarkisian and swept to power. Ghumashian pledged allegiance to Pashinian’s team shortly after the “velvet revolution.”
Tamazian on Thursday effectively accused the ruling party of engineering Zakharov's defection. The mayor labeled the defector as a “rat” motivated by “personal interests.”
Two similar defections allowed Pashinian’s party to replace the opposition head of another community in July. The community consists of the northwestern town of Akhurian and surrounding villages. Civil Contract failed to prevail in local elections also held in September 2022.
Commenting on the looming political crisis in Alaverdi, an Armenian opposition parliamentarian, Garnik Danielian, accused Pashinian’s political team of continuing to trample of on the will of voters. “This is an undemocratic and despicable practice,” he charged in a Facebook post.
The Armenian government already faced such accusations in the wake of local polls held across the country in 2022 and 2021. Civil Contract was defeated in key urban communities, notably Vanadzor, Armenia’s third largest city. Some of those ballots were won by jailed or indicted figures at odds with the government. One of them was set free right after deciding not to become a town mayor.
In Vanadzor, the leader of an opposition bloc, Mamikon Aslanian, was arrested in December 2021 just days after winning the municipal ballot. Aslanian remains in detention, standing trial on corruption charges rejected by him as politically motivated.