Elections in Yerevan: 14 political forces competing for mayor
Elections to the Yerevan Council of Elders 2023
Election to the Council of Elders, which actually serves as the capital’s parliament, are taking place in Yerevan. Fourteen political factions, 13 parties and one bloc, are involved. For the election, 475 polling stations have been set up in the capital.
The results of this election will also determine who will become the mayor of Yerevan.
The mayor can become the first number of the electoral list of the political force participating in the election – a bloc or a party, which gets 50 or more percent of the mandates in the Council of Elders. If none of the participants in the election succeeds in achieving such a result, the parties elected to the Council may form a coalition and decide who will be elected mayor.
The importance of these elections lies in the fact that their results will make it clear which political force is favored by the citizens of Yerevan. And the capital is home to almost half of the country’s residents.
20.7% do not intend to participate in the elections
MPG (Marketing Professional Group), a sociological organization representing GALLUP International in Armenia, conducted a poll among voters. 802 people took part in it. The poll was conducted by phone from September 12 to 13.
When asked whether they would participate in the elections, 55% gave an unequivocally positive answer, 13.8% said they were more inclined to participate, 8.4% were more inclined to refuse to participate. 20.7% stated that they do not intend to participate in the elections. 2.1% found it difficult to answer this question.
“In our experience, those 13.8% who said they would rather go to the polls usually don’t show up to vote. That is, we can realistically count on only 55% who have clearly announced their intention to go to the polls. This figure is higher if we compare it with the previous elections,” Aram Navasardyan, the company’s director, told reporters.
67.3% of respondents said they have not familiarized themselves with the pre-election programs of the participants of the elections. 92.3% did not participate in the meetings organized by political forces during the pre-election campaign.
On violations during the election campaign period
The Human Rights Defender’s Office monitored the electoral process during the election campaign. A working group was established, which studied “about 500 publications in media and social networks about alleged violations of electoral law”.
According to the results of the monitoring, most of the alleged violations concerned
- abuse of administrative resources,
- attempts to financially interest people to participate in pre-election meetings,
- cases of coercion to participate in them.
There were also cases of “obstructing the activities of journalists and observers”.
The Ombudsman’s office reports that all alleged violations were reported to the Prosecutor General’s Office, the Ministry of Internal Affairs, Yerevan Mayor’s Office and other bodies responsible for the elections.
“The election campaign was correct and calm.”
Head of the Central Election Commission Vahagn Hovakimyan said that “the election campaign was correct and calm”, there were not as many problems as usual.
“Moreover, we are not talking about recorded violations, but about alarm signals. 70-80% of the signals we received were false, that is, their investigation did not reveal any violations,” he emphasized.
On the eve of the elections the Chairman of the Central Election Commission also briefly touched upon the issue of participation of citizens of other countries in the elections, which was actively discussed in the Armenian media. He stated that “speculations on this issue are inappropriate”.
According to the Electoral Code, persons over 18 years of age, who are not citizens of Armenia but have been registered in the state register for at least one year, can also participate in the elections. Referring to the information received from the Migration Service, one of the Armenian media resources recently reported that 14,839 citizens of other countries, the overwhelming majority of whom (10,303) are citizens of Russia, have the right to participate in the elections to the Yerevan Council of Elders.
The same publication says that 223 citizens of Azerbaijan have the right to vote. The publication claims that these are “Armenian refugees of the 90s, who still retain the citizenship of Azerbaijan”.
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Elections to the Yerevan Council of Elders 2023
