Election of Mayor of Armenian city of Talin ends in scandal

The candidate for the city Mayor, nominated by the winning opposition bloc, at the sitting of the Council of Elders, himself voted for his opponent from the ruling party, and endured by doing so the majority of votes for him.

In 12 out of 38 communities in Armenia, where local elections were held on December 5, oppositional candidates gained most of the votes. In those communities where the pro-government candidates failed to gain more than 50% of the votes and were unable to create a coalition, different methods of persecution are used – from threats and pressure aimed to force a person to abandon his/her mandate up to the initiation of criminal cases, oppositionists have stated.

The "Civil Contract" Party has violated the law when nominating its candidate for the Mayor of Talin, Andranik Margaryan, the press secretary of the "Zartonk" Party, has stated. The law regulates the formation of a faction, which was to nominate its candidate for the Mayor of the community, Mr Margaryan wrote on the "Zartonk" Party page on the Facebook.

As a result of the voting, the ruling party gained 10 mandates out of 21, which deprived the "Civil Contract" of the opportunity to form the city power. Its opponents, the "Zartonk", "Aik" and "Our Community" Parties, received 6, 3 and 2 mandates, respectively.

Andranik Margaryan claims that after the signing of the coalition agreement, pressure was exerted on the opposition, including with the involvement of law enforcers. The voting on the candidacy of the Mayor was held amid intensified measures, numerous police forces were pulled up to the building of the city administration. As a result, Tavros Sapeyan was elected to the post of the city Mayor.

"The 'Zartonk' Party condemns the authorities' actions and draws the attention of international structures to what gas happened," the statement asserts.