How Repatriates Will Influence Yerevan’s Next Municipal Government
Just over a week to go until Yerevantsis head to the polls to elect their second municipal council in as many years. But this year is poised to be different. As the country prepares for the first significant round of voting since the Velvet Revolution, all eyes are on the Central Election Committee, which has promised a clean and fair election. Aside from parliamentary deliberations over criminalizing vote buying and imposing stricter penalties on electoral irregularities, this election will feature an unprecedented level of involvement by the country’s repatriate community.
So far, it looks like it’s anybody’s game. The former mayor Taron Margaryan resigned in July following a corruption scandal, and the Republican Party chose not to field any candidates. While analysts are predicting an easy victory for Nikol Pashinyan’s ‘My Step’ coalition, eleven other political factions are contesting the ballot.
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I am quite dismayed that both the author and the Armenian weekly gloss over the fact that the ARF has also presented a slate of 7 (seven) candidates for the Yerevan municipal elections. Can’t quite comprehend why there is not a single mention of this fact, let alone a presentation of one of them, as the author so eloquently does for the Louys and My Step candidates.
What about Raffi? It looks like the writer’s memory/knowledge goes back only about 10 years. People began repatriating the day Armenia declared independence.
Is this a election advertisement for two of the factions in the ARF newspaper??!! During the period before the election, all the worldwide ARF organs must support our candidates not others as they do not advertise for us. I urge AW to publish an article ASAP about ARF candidates that are from Diaspora. No other party has as many Diaspora born candidates than ARF.
The ruling coalition is in disarray. This is not a good sign and quite worrisome.
There are bitter rows and accusations being made in the ongoing municipal election campaign in Yerevan. It does not appear to be a clean campaign. Too many candidates,
too many interests.
Tsaroukian’s Prosperous Armenian Party’s candidate Naira Zohrabian has claimed that Pashinian and his party are playing dirty games involving “Insults and threats”.
The elections to be held on 9/23 must be clean and not be influenced by fraud, political pressures or the influence yielded by the Oligarchs. Otherwise the government will lose its credibility and the “velvet revolution” will lose its momentum.
That will be a great pity and a step backward.
Vart Adjemian
Vart Adjemian