Two opposition forces to support Vardan Ghukasyan at Gyumri elections 

ArmInfo. Two opposition forces that entered the Gyumri Council of Elders intend to support the candidacy of Vardan Ghukasyan, nominated by the Communist Party of  Armenia, in the city mayoral elections. This was stated by the leader  of the Mother Armenia bloc Andranik Tevanyan at a briefing on the  results of the city council elections held on March 30.

According to him, the ruling Civil Contract party was unable to  provide its candidate with an absolute majority of votes. Now, in  order to ensure the set goal of electing the mayor of the second  largest and most important city in Armenia, the Mother Armenia bloc  declares its support for the candidate who received the largest  number of votes. Tevanyan called on other opposition forces to follow  the example of the bloc.

"Despite the limited time, we were able to do a huge amount of work;  if we had this time, we would have had many more votes. Now we have  every opportunity to defeat the Civil Contract party, which will  allow the opposition to take the helm of the city. Our program will  definitely be presented at the meeting of the City Council of  Elders," Tevanyan said.

He added that the ball is currently in the hands of half of the other  opposition forces participating in the elections. The politician  called on these forces to rise above personal ambitions and start a  dialogue on supporting Vardan Ghukasyan.

In addition to the Mother Armenia bloc, the leader of the My Strong  Community bloc Ruben Mkhitaryan has already announced his support for  the representative of the Communist Party.

On March 30, elections to the councils of elders were held in Gyumri.  As of 08:00, the Central Election Commission of Armenia published  data from 81 polling stations out of 82. According to this data, the  ruling Civil Contract party (acting mayor Sarik Minasyan) is in the  lead with 36.80% (16,938 votes). In second place is the Communist  Party of Armenia (former mayor Vardan Ghukasyan), which received  20.71% of the votes (9,537). The third position is occupied by the  Our City bloc (MP Martun Grigoryan) with a result of 15.85% (7,296).  Then the votes of the voters were distributed as follows: My Powerful  Community Party (Ruben Mkhitaryan) - 7.94% (3,659), Mother Armenia  bloc (Karen Simonyan) - 6.18% (2,844).