The party led by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian lost control of the community comprising the formerly industrial town of Alaverdi and over two dozen other towns and villages as a result of local elections held in September 2022. It fell just short of an overall majority in the 27-member local council empowered to appoint the community head.
The opposition Aprelu Yerkir party, which won 13 council seats, installed its member Arkadi Tamazian as mayor after teaming up with former President Levon Ter-Petrosian’s Armenian National Congress (HAK) party. The HAK controls only one seat.
One of the council members representing Aprelu Yerkir, Simon Zakharov, unexpectedly defected from Aprelu Yerkir in July. Despite denying media reports that he was co-opted by his 13 pro-government colleagues, Zakharov backed last week a Civil Contract motion to oust Tamazian.
The incumbent mayor and his supporters said the motion is illegal because Armenian law stipulates that no-confidence votes cannot take place more than once a year. They argue that Aprelu Yerkir already initiated a tactical motion of censure in October.
Civil Contract representatives counter that the initiative is null and void because the Alaverdi council did not make a quorum needed for a formal debate on it. They have also dismissed opposition calls for a snap local election.
Scores of riot police surrounded the Alaverdi municipality building on Tuesday morning as the 14 pro-government council members gathered for an emergency session and voted to replace Tamazian by Civil Contract’s Davit Ghumashian. The latter used to be affiliated with former President Serzh Sarkisian’s Republican Party.
Tamazian and Aprelu Yerkir’s Yerevan-based leader Mesrop Arakelian broke through the police cordon to enter the municipality building and condemn the vote as “illegal.”
“Shame on you!” the ousted mayor shouted before trading insults with Civil Contract figures. Police officers intervened to prevent a violent clash between them.
Addressing about a hundred supporters protesting outside the building, Tamazian said that he and his party will challenge his ouster in court. Several protesters were detained by the police.
Levon Zurabian, The HAK’s deputy chairman and Ter-Petrosian’s right-hand man, also denounced the power grab, saying that it makes mockery of government claims about Armenia’s democratization.
“This is Nikol Pashinian’s idea of democracy … Pashinian brags about his democratic achievements, but what is happening in Alaverdi testifies to the opposite. Elected people are pressured by police and other law-enforcement bodies,” Zurabian told reporters. He claimed that Pashinian’s political team wants to also get rid of other opposition mayors in a similar fashion.
In July, two defections allowed Pashinian’s party to unseat the opposition head of a local community in northwestern Shirak province encompassing the town of Akhurian and surrounding villages.
In local polls held across Armenia in 2022 and 2021, Civil Contract was also defeated in key urban communities, notably the country’s third largest city of Vanadzor. Some of those ballots were won by jailed or indicted figures at odds with the government. One of them was set free right after deciding not to become a town mayor.
In Vanadzor, the leader of an opposition bloc, Mamikon Aslanian, was arrested in December 2021 just days after winning the municipal ballot. Aslanian remains in detention, standing trial on corruption charges rejected by him as politically motivated.