© CHONRI510/Shutterstock
© CHONRI510/Shutterstock
Last Sunday, local elections were held in Gyumri, Armenia's second city. With a voter turnout of 42.68%, no candidate obtained an absolute majority to govern.These elections have national importance in view of the 2026 parliamentary elections
Voters in Armenia’s second largest city of Gyumri went to the polls on Sunday to elect a new City Council which would then select a Mayor. The same day, local elections were held in the Parakar village community close to the capital, Yerevan. Both votes were considered indication of support for Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan since the Yerevan City Council elections in September 2023.
In that vote, the governmental candidate, Tigran Avinyan, emerged victorious only by striking a deal with a controversial video blogger currently detained in the United States by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).
With Pashinyan’s ratings at around 11% in Armenia, according to a survey held in January, and with parliamentary elections on the horizon next year, these two local elections held national significance.
As was the case in Yerevan in 2023 with Avinyan, Civil Contract’s Sarik Minasyan also failed to garner above the 50% + 1 threshold necessary score an outright victory.
Instead, attracting 16,938 votes, or 36.21 percent of ballots cast, Minasyan would require support from other parties to become mayor. A controversial former mayor, Vardan Ghukasyan, representing the Communist Party, came in second with 20.5% of the vote and Our City Alliance’s Martun Grigoryan, a non-party member of an opposition faction in parliament, followed with 15.5%. My Strong Community’s Ruben Mkhitaryan and Mother Armenia’s Karen Simonyan came next with 7.9 and 6.11% respectively.
While the last two parties said they would support Ghukasyan, Grigoryan was not so forthcoming. In 2014, Ghukasyan’s nephew was sentenced to 17 years in prison for killing a close associate of Grigoryan and injuring another in what has been described as a “family feud”. Armenian media reported he was unreachable and that his staff refused to answer telephone calls. His support would determine who would govern Gyumri as Civil Contract will hold only 14 of the 33 seats in the Council of Elders. Ghukasyan holds 8 and the others 11. Ghukasyan, who was mayor of Gyumri in 1999-2012, has often been accused of corruption and his family of various criminal acts, often resorting to violence to defend their business interests.
Prior to the vote, Ghukasyan and his bodyguard were temporarily detained by police on suspicion of the illegal possession of firearms and ammunition. Alleged video of a teenage relative of Ghukasyan was also spread by a pro-government NGO accusing him of sexually abusing a young girl with his friends.
The opposition maintains that the outcome in Gyumri demonstrates that Pashinyan will face an uphill struggle in parliamentary elections scheduled for mid-2026. His supporters, however, remind critics that even when Pashinyan’s Civil Contract won snap parliamentary elections in 2021, it also lost local elections in Gyumri just a few months later. The municipality had been shrouded in controversy ever since, with Pashinyan appointing Sarik Minasyan as the city’s acting mayor late last year.
Perhaps in anticipation of failing to win an outright victory, the European Alliance, a collection of pro-EU extra-parliamentary parties and civil activists, also ran in elections held at the weekend. Last week’s passage by the National Assembly of a largely symbolic bill to eventually seek EU accession came from the group believed close to Pashinyan. They failed to secure enough votes to pass the threshold necessary to win any seats in the Council of Elders. Gyumri is also home to the 102nd Russian Military Base.
Meanwhile, in Parakar, Civil Contract lost to the Country of Living party which won with more than 56%. Political analyst Suren Surenyants, whose party unsuccessfully contended Gyumri and did not win any seats, wrote on Facebook that the outcome of the local elections marked the beginning of the end of Pashinyan’s premiership.
That is, of course, far too early to call, though a senior government party member did admit that his party would not control Gyumri. The opposition also claims that the government will increase pressure on opposition-controlled local authorities as the parliamentary elections approach.
On 1 April, criminal proceedings were initiated against Ghukasyan for a recording leaked four days before the vote allegedly demonstrating that he attempted to influence the outcome through coercion.
The outcome might also ring alarm bells in both Yerevan and possibly even Baku. With the text of a peace agreement finalised, questions have now been raised as to whether Pashinyan can win the 2026 elections or hold let alone pass a referendum necessary to change the constitution in order to sign it.
A scandal also broke out in Gyumri when Civil Contract parliamentary deputy Vilen Gabrielyan drunkenly verbally assaulted a journalist after polls closed. During the incident, Gabrielyan reportedly refused to accept calls for his resignation saying there was no need as there would be regime change in 2026.
Gabrielyan has since resigned with one opposition parliamentary lawmaker, Artur Khachaturian, claiming it was this comment, though likely made sarcastically, that saw him apologise and renounce his seat in the National Assembly.
“Many are now awaiting post-election developments”, opposition figure Avetik Chalabyan wrote on Facebook. Pashinyan, however, put a more positive spin on the results in Gyumri and Parakar. “The Citizen of the Republic of Armenia has the chance to freely make a choice. The citizen’s choice is our law. I congratulate all political forces and candidates who garnered the citizen’s trust and won in the elections”, Pashinyan said in a written statement. Certainly, engagement in the Gyumri election was higher than before. Of 109,453 registered voters in Gyumri, only 24% participated in 2021. This time it was 42.68%.