Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s Civil Contract party won most votes (36.8 percent) but fell well short of an absolute majority in the city council empowered to appoint the mayor. Official vote results show that it will hold only 14 seats in the 33-member council. The 19 other seats will be controlled by four opposition groups.
Vartan Ghukasian, a former Gyumri mayor who ran in the election on the Armenian Communist Party (HKK) ticket, staked a claim to that post of mayor after the HKK came in second with almost 20.7 percent of the vote. He quickly won the backing of two other opposition groups led by TV producer Ruben Mkhitarian and businessman Karen Simonian. They polled 7.9 percent and 6.2 percent respectively.
The fourth opposition contender, the Our City bloc of Gyumri-based opposition lawmaker Martun Grigorian, got almost 16 percent. Grigorian and Ghukasian as well as their extended families have long been at loggerheads with each other. Grigorian was therefore reluctant to the provide the decisive support to the ex-mayor despite facing strong pressure from Yerevan-based opposition leaders and public figures critical of the government.
In what he called his “most difficult” ever political decision, Grigorian announced on Friday that members of the new city council affiliated with Our City will give Ghukasian the votes needed for his election as mayor.
“I apologize to all my voters, relatives, friends, and supporters, but I also say with confidence that I am subordinating my personal issues and approaches to the interests and security of my country, state and statehood, Gyumri and the people of Gyumri and I am taking this step at the demand of the people,” he said in a statement. He stressed that his top priority now is to oust Pashinian’s party from the municipal administration.
Grigorian made clear that he believes Ghukasian is “the most vulnerable” of the opposition mayoral candidates because of criminal cases pending against him. He warned that the controversial ex-mayor could be arrested soon, just like another opposition figure who won most votes in Vanadzor, the country’s third largest city, in a 2021 local election.
The lawmaker said that it would therefore make more sense to designate one of the two other opposition candidates, Mkhitarian or Simonian, as Gyumri mayor. He chided them for rushing to back Ghukasian.
Mkhitarian, who boasts a large nationwide following on social media, was quick to welcome Grigorian’s announcement. “The coveted victories lie ahead,” he wrote, hinting at regime change in Yerevan.
There was no immediate reaction from Ghukasian, who ran the city from 1999 to 2012. He said during the election campaign that he is not afraid of being arrested.
Nazeli Baghdasarian, Pashinian’s Gyumri-born spokeswoman who actively participated in the ruling party’s election campaign, predicted Grigorian’s decision earlier this week. She claimed that the local opposition forces got their votes as a result of “misleading the people and abusing their trust.”
The opposition has charged, for its part, that Civil Contract and its mayoral candidate, Sarik Minasian, heavily abused their government levers before and during the election.
The Armenian government appointed Minasian as acting mayor late last year following criminal charges brought against the unofficial leader of a local bloc that ran Gyumri. The charges led to the resignation of the city’s previous, elected mayor, Vardges Samsonian.
