Yerevan City Hall © Armine Aghayan / Creative Commons
Next month, on 17 September, Yerevan will cast its vote in municipal elections that could prove decisive in determining the country’s future. Despite a significant decline in popularity since Armenia’s defeat in the 2020 war with Azerbaijan, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s favoured candidate, Deputy Mayor Tigran Avinyan, is nonetheless still considered the favourite to win.
Last week, however, the political landscape took an intriguing turn with the return of Hayk Marutyan, Yerevan’s former mayor elected in a landslide on the back of Pashinyan’s 2018 rise to power, to the political scene. An actor and comedian, Marutyan sometimes draws comparisons to Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky, also a former showman.
Though the position of mayor might not sound so influential, in the context of small countries such as Armenia, its relevance is more than many outsiders might assume. With around 35 percent of the population resident in the capital, an elected head of the country’s economic, political, educational, and cultural centre has a significance that should not be underestimated.
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Whether attempts to turn the council elections into a post-2020 vote of confidence in Pashinyan remains to be seen, but whatever the result, the elections will likely be viewed by some observers as a referendum not only on the prime minister but also on a speculated peace deal that could be signed by the end of the year. Its conduct might also prove the first real test of Armenia’s democratic credentials.
The full article can be read here.
