Earlier this month, the businessman and former Gyumri mayor, Samvel Balasanian, was charged, along with four other individuals close to him, with illegally privatizing municipal land in 2014. The current mayor, Vardges Samsonian, and the other members of the Balasanian Bloc holding seats in the city council are widely expected to resign because of that.
They continued to avoid on Thursday any contact with the media. Balasanian, who is reportedly in the United States at the moment, also remained silent.
The Balasanian Bloc controls 14 seats in the 33-member council, compared with 11 seats held by Civil Contract. If the local legislature fails to elect a new mayor after the bloc’s exit, it will be disbanded and a new election will be held. Until that ballot, Gyumri would be run by an interim mayor appointed by the central government.
“We are getting ready for that scenario,” Alen Simonian, the Armenian parliament speaker and a senior Civil Contract figure, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Simonian said that the snap election will likely take place “in the second half of next year.” He revealed that his party’s governing board headed by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian discussed preparations for it and even chose a mayoral candidate at a meeting held late on Wednesday.
Speaking in the parliament just a couple of hours before that meeting, Pashinian claimed to be unaware of the latest developments in Gyumri. He laughed off opposition claims that his administration is using politically motivated charges to seize power in yet another local community.
Narek Mirzoyan, a member of the Gyumri council representing the opposition Republican Party, echoed those claims on Thursday.
“The legal process [targeting Balasanian] seems to be mixed with political processes here,” Mirzoyan told RFE/RL’s Armenian. “We are seriously concerned because democracy, citizens’ votes are trampled as a result.”
Simonian denied that Pashinian and his political team are instrumentalizing justice to overturn the results of the last Gyumri election held in 2021 and gain control of the municipal administration.
“If the ruling force had put such pressure anywhere, we would have had many well-known prisoners and court verdicts,” said the controversial speaker.