Pashinyan’s party loses majority in Yerevan elections
Civilnet
By Mark Dovich and Syuzanna Petrosyan
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party failed to gather enough votes during Sunday’s election to keep its majority in Yerevan’s city council.
If it’s able to form a coalition, Civil Contract may still be able to install the city’s next mayor. The preliminary results showed the party still doing better than all other contenders with 32% of the votes, though it fell short of an absolute majority in the Council of Elders, which appoints the mayor.
Neither Pashinyan nor his party’s mayoral candidate, Tigran Avinyan, have commented on the election results.
National Progress, a party represented by ex-mayor Hayk Marutyan has come in second with close to 19% of the votes. Mother Armenia party came in third with 15% of the votes, Republic and Public voice parties came in fourth and fifth, respectively. All five parties will have seats in the new city council.
Mane Tandilyan's Land of Living party, closely affiliated with Ruben Vardanyan, did not meet the four percent threshold needed to enter the council.
Armenia’s Central Election Commission (CEC) reported that only about 28.5 percent of Yerevan’s eligible voters cast ballots on Sunday, well below the 44% turnout in Yerevan’s previous city council elections in 2018.
Sunday marked the first time such a large number of Armenians had the chance to make their voices heard at the ballot box since the country’s parliamentary elections in June 2021.
Observers say the results are indicative of Yerevan’s declining support for Pashinyan, despite widespread criticism for his perceived mishandling of the 2020 Nagorno-Karabakh war and ongoing negotiations with Azerbaijan.
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