Arush Arushanian, who has run Goris since 2017, was one of the four heads of major communities of Armenia’s Syunik province who demanded Prime Minister Pashinian’s resignation in the wake of the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh. They joined former President Robert Kocharian’s opposition Hayastan alliance and were arrested shortly after June 2021 parliamentary elections on various charges denied by them.
Arushanian stopped publicly criticizing Pashinian after spending eight months in prison, fueling growing media speculation that he defected to the government camp. He confirmed it by unofficially campaigning for Pashinian ahead of the June 2026 parliamentary elections and announcing last week that he will seek reelection in an alliance with Civil Contract.
“If I were opposed to the current government policy … I would not have formed the alliance,” the former bitter critic of Pashinian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on September 10. Pashinian’s government is acting “for the benefit of the country,” he said.
Arushanian was set free before receiving in March 2022 a suspended prison sentence for assault and abuse of power. A Goris court also ruled at the time that he cannot hold any local government posts for the next five years.
Arushanian defied the ban and held on to his post with the help of the local council dominated by his supporters. The Armenian Justice Ministry’s Probation Service accused the 35-year-old mayor of breaking the law and petitioned the Goris court to send him back to prison. The court refused to do that in a ruling subsequently upheld by the Court of Appeals.
The Office of the Prosecutor-General then appealed to the higher Court of Cassation. A spokesperson for the court told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Tuesday that it has thrown out the appeal, thereby precluding Arushanian’s imprisonment.
Armenian opposition mayors have been regularly prosecuted during Pashinian rule on charges rejected by them as politically motivated. Vartan Ghukasian, the mayor of the country’s second largest city of Gyumri, was arrested last October more than six months after defeating, together with other opposition groups, Pashinian’s party in a municipal election. Ghukasian remains under arrest.
In another major urban community, Vanadzor, the leader of a local opposition bloc, Mamikon Aslanian, was arrested in December 2021 just as he was poised to again become mayor following a local election. Aslanian was released from custody on bail in July 2024.