The CEC is due to complete the registration process by August 18 and publish electoral lists within three days after that.
The vote in the elections to Yerevan’s Municipal Assembly (Council of Elders) is due on September 17. It will proceed according to party lists, with the four-week campaigns of the political forces and their candidates for mayor commencing on August 23.
The ruling Civil Contract party is led in the elections by current Deputy Mayor Tigran Avinian who formerly also served as deputy prime minister in the government of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian.
Former Yerevan mayor Hayk Marutian, who was removed from office by a vote of no confidence in December 2021 after falling out with the ruling party, has also announced his participation in the elections with the hitherto little-known National Progress party.
Several other political parties and groups, notably Aprelu Yerkir (Country for Living), Bright Armenia, the European Party of Armenia and others, have also applied for registration to participate in the Yerevan elections.
Two key parliamentary opposition alliances affiliated with former presidents Robert Kocharian and Serzh Sarkisian, Hayastan and Pativ Unem, have not joined the local race in the Armenian capital where about a third of the country’s voters are concentrated.
It is not clear whether either alliance will support any other political party or bloc participating in the elections, including the Mother Armenia bloc, which is led by Andranik Tevanian, a former Hayastan faction member who resigned recently to focus on the Yerevan elections.