By Lia Avagyan
An election monitoring mission said attendance at a concert in Gyumri by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s band last Sunday was organized through administrative pressure, while government officials rejected the allegation, according to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
The Akanates Observation Mission said it had documented coordinated participation in the concert by Pashinyan’s group, known as Varchabend.
Mission coordinator Meri Minasyan said observers working in Gyumri verified what they saw through several separate sources.
“The information was gathered through direct observation. We had four to five observers monitoring the event, including before it began, watching how people gathered and who arrived. We also received confirmation from observers and other anonymous sources,” she told RFE/RL’s Armenian service.
According to the mission, teachers from schools in the nearby Akhuryan community municipality, as well as staff at municipally run preschools, were instructed to attend.
Minasyan said the direction allegedly came from a party office in Gyumri’s central square.
“The confirmed information concerns preschools and schools under the authority of the Akhuryan community, where participation in the event was ordered by the party office,” she said.
Davit Arushanyan, governor of Shirak Province and head of the ruling party’s regional election headquarters, denied the accusation.
“I do not understand the noise. One person writes that there was nobody in the square, another writes that people were brought there. They should decide,” he said.
In a statement summarizing its findings, the Akanates mission said using political leverage to influence employees of educational institutions undermines equal political competition and contradicts democratic principles.
However, the group said it had not yet filed a complaint with law enforcement agencies.
Minasyan said the mission’s legal team reviews each case to determine whether there are sufficient legal grounds to submit complaints to bodies such as the Corruption Prevention Commission or the Central Electoral Commission.
“In this specific case, we have not submitted a complaint anywhere. This is a less clearly regulated area,” she said.
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