{"id":287192,"date":"2018-09-28T10:14:31","date_gmt":"2018-09-28T06:14:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/epress.am\/?p=287192"},"modified":"2018-09-28T10:16:02","modified_gmt":"2018-09-28T06:16:02","slug":"fair-but-boring-an-overview-of-yerevans-city-council-elections","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2018\/09\/28\/fair-but-boring-an-overview-of-yerevans-city-council-elections.html","title":{"rendered":"Fair but boring? An overview of Yerevan\u2019s city council elections"},"content":{"rendered":"

This week\u2019s elections to Yerevan city council have been markedly fairer than previous years \u2014 but that doesn\u2019t mean there isn\u2019t intrigue.<\/strong><\/p>\n

Hayk Marutyan, the new mayor of Yerevan, on the campaign trail. Source: Facebook. In order to understand election-related processes in Armenia, it is important to put several pins on the political map.<\/p>\n

First, we have witnessed tough policy from Armenia\u2019s revolutionary government \u2014 mass anti-corruption cases, shocking revelations of fraud, criminal cases against former officials and cleanup of state personnel. Second, the \u201c1 March Case\u201d, the arrest and further release of Armenia\u2019s second president Robert Kocharyan, his comeback to politics as the main opponent of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. And amidst all of this, extraordinary municipal elections in Yerevan, which transformed into a referendum of trust toward the new government.<\/p>\n

Between dark and light<\/strong><\/p>\n

On Sunday, Yerevan residents cast their votes and elected a new Council of Elders. Four political alliances and eight parties ran to be included in this body \u2014 with My Step (the revolutionary alliance lead by Nikol Pashinyan\u2019s Civil Contract Party), Luys Alliance and Prosperous Armenia (PAP) under the spotlight.<\/p>\n

From the beginning of the campaign, the party programmes did not receive much attention \u2014 some parties didn\u2019t even have a programme and many had similarities. Discussions on whether the programmes were realistic, or what mechanisms could be used to implement them, remained on the margins of public debate. In effect, they were merely a formality. Generally, all programmes reflected the logic of \u201cwe are for everything good and against everything bad\u201d.<\/p>\n

But a national-level political intrigue was soon to dominate the campaign. A week before the campaign kicked off, Hayk Marutyan, a comedy actor and number one in the candidate list for My Step, declared: \u201cThe situation in Armenia is quite clear \u2014 there are white forces and there are black forces, that\u2019s it.\u201d Marutyan\u2019s division of the political scene into \u201cthe whites\u201d and \u201cthe blacks\u201d was widely criticised, Marutyan and his teammates had to give clarifications. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan also expressed his concern, saying that \u201cmaybe Marutyan accepted that some statements were not correct\u2026 Every political announcement should fit into the logic of the revolution of love and solidarity. We should talk about brighter colours than black and white.\u201d<\/p>\n

The next day after the campaign kicked off, Armenian media reported a leaked recording of phone conversation between the Chief of National Security Service, Artur Vanetsyan, and the Chief of Special Investigation Service, Sasun Khachatryan. This leak played a key role in further developments. And the figure of Robert Kocharyan, Armenia\u2019s second president, loomed behind this leak.<\/p>\n

During a meeting with voters after the conversation was posted, Pashinyan gave an emotional speech. Addressing the wiretapping, he lashed out at those behind the \u201ccounter revolution\u201d and reinforced Marutyan\u2019s rhetoric of \u201clight\u201d and \u201cdark\u201d forces, with the My Step alliance representing the revolution and the rest representing counter revolution. As a result, elections to Yerevan city administration turned into a referendum of trust in Armenia\u2019s revolution.<\/p>\n

It was here that Prosperous Armenia, lead by oligarch Gagik Tsarukyan and widely known for their record of affection towards the former authorities, stepped forward and tried to catch the wave of new developments.<\/p>\n

First, Prosperous Armenia accused My Step of starting an \u201cinformation terror\u201d and denied any connection with Robert Kocharyan. They also claimed that My Step is doing Kocharyan\u2019s \u201cpolitical PR\u201d more than Kocharyan himself. Naira Zohrabyan, the lead Prosperous Armenia candidate, went on to challenge Hayk Marutyan to debate her publicly (\u201cIf you are a real man come to debates without Nikol [Pashinyan]\u201d), emphasising that political rivalry should revolve around the political programmes. PAP itself has never held a convincing discussion on its programme or its implementation.<\/p>\n

Second, PAP, which has been loyal towards Pashinyan\u2019s government since the events of April and May 2018, had to visibly position themselves as opposition. But still PAP didn\u2019t manage to get rid of their image as a sideshow party of the former Republican Party authorities.<\/p>\n

Luys Alliance, with Armenia\u2019s Minister of Justice Artak Zeynalyan topping its list, showed a reserved attitude. Being a part of the Yelq Block, which also included Pashinyan\u2019s Civil Contract, Luys Alliance presented themselves as part of the revolution, criticising the division between \u201clight\u201d and \u201cdark\u201d forces as an unfriendly act towards them.<\/p>\n

During the campaign it was obvious that these three political actors had the best chances of being elected to the Council of Elders.<\/p>\n

Fair but boring<\/strong><\/p>\n

Organising clean and fair elections was the promise that the new government talked about the most. Moreover, the municipal elections in Yerevan were seen as a testing ground for the upcoming parliamentary elections. Both sides of the \u201cbarricades\u201d seemed to agree that the upcoming elections should be the first \u2014 in a long time \u2014 which would raise no procedural concerns.<\/p>\n

Two of the main promises of the revolutionary government \u2014 to change Armenia\u2019s Electoral Code and legislation on political parties \u2014 have had to be postponed indefinitely due to a lack of time and possible sabotage by the Republican Party majority in parliament. A new expert committee working on electoral reforms was established. Besides, some crucial amendments were made to the Criminal Code, making the punishment for electoral offences stricter. The main restraining factor preventing possible electoral fraud turned out to be the \u201cnew\u201d police, which has been under the aegis of the revolutionary government and had political will and resources for the suppression of offenses.<\/p>\n

Allegedly, there were reports that PAP started using its resources for vote buying and intimidation from the very beginning of the campaign. A day before the elections, \u201cIndependent Observer Public Alliance\u201d, which deploys hundreds of people to work as observers for local elections, stated at a press conference that there were enough trustworthy sources to claim that PAP issued bribes to people to attend Naira Zohrabyan\u2019s meetings. An MP from PAP and supporters tried to stop the press conference.<\/p>\n

The same day, police raided the campaign offices of PAP, which seemed to confirm the circulating information. Police found enough proof of fraud, and as a result criminal cases were opened. It served as a preventive signal to PAP that they could not repeat the same electoral behaviour which worked impeccably during all past elections.<\/p>\n

Predictably, the elections went ahead without any major violations. All eight local observer organisations confirmed this, mentioning the day was very calm and somewhat \u201cboring\u201d. Previously, election observers had to face the abuse of \u201cadministrative resources\u201d \u2014 local electoral committees, proxies, police and district gangs. For the first time in many years, observers didn\u2019t have to physically stop frauds, but did what they were supposed to do \u2014 observe, register and evaluate.<\/p>\n

The turnout of 43% was the only thing that allowed the former ruling Republican Party to speculate about the elections. In fact, this turnout was higher than previous elections, when the numbers were falsified through abuse of administrative resources, vote buying and bringing people to polling stations by hundreds, when many who did not live in Armenia any more were still included in the voting lists and when even the dead voted too.<\/p>\n

The revolution enters new spaces<\/strong><\/p>\n

As a result, My Step received 81%, PAP – 7%, Luys Alliance – 5%. Hayk Marutyan automatically became the new mayor of Yerevan.<\/p>\n

At first sight, the alarming polarity of the seresults testifies to the fact that the course and results of these elections can not be considered outside the general context of the revolution.<\/p>\n

Of course, people didn\u2019t cast their votes solely for Hayk Marutyan: their choice wasn\u2019t guided by political programmes; conceptual differences over Yerevan\u2019s issues were secondary. People went to elections to reaffirm their support for the revolutionary government, to ensure the revolution is continuous and enters all state institutions, to defend the revolution from the peril looming in the distance. Clearly, the revolution in Armenia is not finished and is entering new spaces, gradually overcoming rising barriers. It is hard to imagine political processes outside of the revolution any time soon.<\/p>\n

Zara Harutiunian and Samson Martirosyan<\/strong>
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At first sight, the alarming polarity of the seresults testifies to the fact that the course and results of these elections can not be considered outside the general context of the revolution. People didn\u2019t cast their votes solely for Hayk Marutyan…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":287193,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[65981,10],"tags":[34167,70356,70354],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287192"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=287192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/287192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/287193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=287192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=287192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=287192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}