Opposition gained convincing victory in Gyumri - Hayakve

ArmInfo. The current government has concentrated a huge amount of resources in Gyumri to ensure its victory in the elections to the City Council of Elders at  any cost. This was written on his Facebook page by co-founder of the  "Hayakve" civil initiative Avetik Chalabyan.

"Yesterday I witnessed a repetition of almost all the previous  vicious morals, numerous and varied violations during the elections,  which perhaps explains how the ruling force in 2021, having received  only 7,800 votes in the city, managed to receive almost 17,000 votes.  However, despite this, the opposition was able to organize an  effective counterattack with its work, receiving a total of about 27  thousand votes and winning a confident victory," Chalabyan  emphasized.

In his opinion, the fact that the opposition was represented by  different leaders was only a plus, since, contrary to the popular  opinion about a "single savior", the presence of different  candidates, on the one hand, allows mobilizing different layers of  society, which are otherwise difficult to unite, and on the other  hand, complicates the task of the authorities in denigrating their  opponents. "During the election campaign, the current government  periodically turned on the repressive machine, and during the days of  silence, it continued open propaganda against its opponents, even  with an admixture of hatred, which was aggravated by numerous  violations on election day. Nevertheless, its financial, propaganda  and administrative resources were insufficient for victory, this is  an important fact that can no longer be ignored. There are many  reasons for this, but let's state that the reality in Armenia has  changed, and the myth of the invincibility of the authorities  dissipated yesterday, with all the ensuing consequences," the  co-founder of "Ayakve" noted.

He emphasized that one of these reasons, although not the only one,  is the increased activity of civil society. "Yesterday, our "Ayakve"  did a great job at all the polling stations in Gyumri, but at these  same polling stations I had the honor of cooperating with  representatives of a number of other observation organizations,  journalists and commission members, who each in their place did their  job with great responsibility and together ensured the establishment  of the institution of competitive elections in Armenia.  Although  yesterday's elections were far from ideal, without the dedicated work  of hundreds of active citizens the picture would have been much  worse. Many are now waiting for the developments after the elections  and are concerned that the hard-won victory of the opposition will  not be squandered again," Chalabyan wrote.

On March 30, elections to the Council of Elders were held in Gyumri.  As of 08:00, the Central Election Commission of Armenia published  data from 81 out of 82 polling stations. According to this data, the  ruling Civil Contract party (acting mayor Sarik Minasyan) is in the  lead with a result of 36.80% (16,938 votes). In second place is the  Communist Party of Armenia (former mayor Vardan Ghukasyan), for which  20.71% of voters voted (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).