Epress.am News from Armenia
Arayik Khandoyan, a veteran of the 1992-1994 Nagorno-Karabakh War and a member of the “Daredevils of Sasun” armed group that seized and held a Yerevan police station for two weeks in July, was running for mayor of his native Tsaghkahovit village in Armenia's Sunday local elections. Despite the seemingly high number of his supporters at the site, Khanodyan, along with incumbent mayor Yervand Khachatryan, lost the position to non-partisan candidate Norain Hakobyan. Our reporter Satenik Hovsepyan was covering the Tsaghkahovit election for Epress.am.
Overall, the village of about 1700 people saw a higher-than-average voter turnout, with the majority of the residents having cast their votes by noon. Upon my arrival in Tsaghkahovit, I immediately got the impression that Arayik Khandoyan was the clear leader in the mayoral race: voters were wearing t-shirts and driving cars adorned with pictures of the jailed candidate.
This impression, however, was not reflected in the official preliminary results, according to which, Norain Hakobyan won the election with 364 votes cast in his favour, while Khandoyan and incumbent mayor Khachatryan received 257 and 311 votes, respectively.
Throughout the day, crowds of people would gather inside and outside the polling station. Police, when asked by reporters why they didn't remove the people who were not voting from the area, would insist that “everyone here is voting.” Nevertheless, a few hours into the elections it became evident to me that there were indeed several people who were free to come and go as they pleased.
At some point, Republican candidate Yervand Khachatryan's proxy, Karen Tonoyan, went up to Arayik Khandoyan's wife, Anush Hayrapetyan, and demanded that she change her t-shirt adorned with a picture of her husband. Tonoyan insisted that the t-shirt “encouraged propaganda” for Khandoyan; the woman, however, refused to comply with the demand, while other Tsaghkahovit villagers, including Norain Hakobyan, intervened quickly, demanding that Tonoyan leave the site and stop interfering with the election process.
Speaking to reporters, Hakobyan claimed that incumbent mayor Khachatryan had handed out bribes in the village – 10 thousand drams (about $21) per person – to ensure his victory. The non-partisan candidate insisted that a number of his relatives had also been offered money. “They have been handing out bribes for 4 days now. They say it's allowance payment, but it's not.”
Norain Hakobyan went on to insist that he would have been willing to pull out from the race had Yervand Khachatryan agreed to do the same. According to the soon-to-be-elected mayor, he had only announced his candidacy to attract votes away from the Republican candidate. Early results, however, show that Hakobyan not only reduced the incumbent mayor's chances to be elected, but also managed to pull ahead of Arayik Khandoyan for whom, he claimed, he is ready to give up his life.
