Avinian on Tuesday specifically dismissed a video suggesting that entire staffs of schools, kindergartens and local government bodies participated in one such rally that was held in the city’s Nor Nork district on Friday.
The video posted on social media shows an activist posing as an Avinian loyalist talking to many of the participants and writing down large numbers of attendees from their respective entities duly given by them. The activist, Artur Chakhoyan, accused the party headed by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian of ordering them to rally for Avinian in hopes of boosting his chances in the municipal elections scheduled for September 17.
“I’m not sure that the numbers or other facts given [to Chakhoyan] are true,” Avinian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service in an interview.
Avinian, who has been widely regarded as Yerevan’s de facto mayor since March, said the schoolteachers, kindergarten personnel and other public workers interviewed by Chakhoyan may have lied because of a lingering fear of their superiors “left over from the past.” He suggested that many of them genuinely support him because the current municipal administration is renovating dozens of schools and kindergartens in the Armenian capital.
“We categorically reject the use of administrative resources and call on law-enforcement bodies receiving such reports to conduct a thorough investigation,” said Avinian.
Pashinian also called for such inquiries in an interview with Armenian Public Television aired late on Monday. He claimed at the same time that any abuse of administrative resources contradicts the “essence” of his party and values espoused by it.
Daniel Ioannisian, a leader of a coalition of civic groups monitoring the upcoming polls, dismissed Pashinian’s explanation as “not convincing.” The Avinian campaign’s recourse to the illegal practice has been “systematic,” he said, adding that the Independent Observer coalition has already sent to prosecutors two “crime reports” about public workers being forced to go to Civil Contract rallies.
“There has been no reaction from the prosecutors yet,” Ioannisian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service. “Our reports are based on both what our observers heard and saw and videos posted on the Internet.”
“Most participants of the [Nor Nork] rally work for local or central government bodies,” he said. “Why was there such disproportion?”