By Mark Dovich
Local lawmakers from the Civil Contract party have ousted a prominent opposition mayor in Armenia, the latest in a string of instances where the ruling party has appeared to obstruct or undermine the democratic process after elections produced results favoring its opponents.
Mayor Arkadi Tamazyan, a member of the Country for Living party who led the northern Armenian mining town of Alaverdi for just over a year, was brought down Tuesday in a vote of no confidence put forward by Civil Contract city councilors. Council members then moved immediately to install Davit Ghumashyan, a Civil Contract member, as mayor.
What happened?
Municipal elections in Alaverdi last September ended with no single party winning the majority of votes. Civil Contract and Country for Living, an upstart party backed by the billionaire businessman and philanthropist Ruben Vardanyan, each secured 13 seats on the 27-member city council. (Vardanyan, who briefly served as Nagorno-Karabakh’s state minister, has been held in Azerbaijan since September, when he was detained trying to leave for Armenia.)
That left the Armenian National Congress, which won the single remaining seat on the council, kingmaker. That party, which is led by former President Levon Ter-Petrossian, threw its weight behind Country for Living, paving the way for Tamazyan to take power.
Then in a surprise twist in July, one of Country for Living’s councilors, Simon Zakharov, left the party and aligned himself with Civil Contract as an independent, giving Civil Contract enough votes to oust Tamazyan.
Zakharov has repeatedly denied defecting to Civil Contract to allow the party to take control of Alaverdi, one of Armenia’s most important industrial centers. Nonetheless, he voted with all 13 Civil Contract members to force Tamazyan out of office Tuesday.
What’s the context?
Despite Civil Contract’s nationwide victory in Armenia’s most recent parliamentary elections in 2021, the years since have seen the ruling party lose a string of highly competitive local elections. In a number of those municipalities, Civil Contract has appeared to obstruct or undermine the democratic process after the elections produced results favoring its electoral opponents.
In the town of Vanadzor, for instance, former Mayor Mamikon Aslanyan was arrested on charges of abuse of power and fraud less than two weeks after leading his party to victory over Civil Contract in local elections held in December 2021. Aslanyan, who remains in detention to this day, has strongly rejected the allegations.
For several months following Aslanyan’s detention, a court blocked Vanadzor’s city council from meeting, in effect putting all municipal business in Armenia’s third-biggest town on hold. Then last May, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan appointed an acting mayor for Vanadzor after parliament gave him the power to select mayors in certain extraordinary circumstances.
What’s been the reaction?
“Civil Contract members have allowed the community of Alaverdi to collapse for the sake of their own ambition,” Tamazyan told CivilNet before Tuesday’s vote. “Is this what Mr. Pashinyan’s democracy, which he talks about endlessly, looks like?”
