The election was widely expected to take place in late December or the first half of January following a government crackdown on a businessman whose bloc ran Gyumri until last month.
The businessman, Samvel Balasanian, was charged in mid-October with illegally privatizing municipal land in 2014. Gyumri Mayor Vardges Samsonian his deputies and the other members of the Balasanian Bloc holding seats in the city council responded by resigning in the following days.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s Civil Contract party swiftly began preparations for the snap vote, unofficially designating the head of its Gyumri chapter, Karen Sarukhanian, as its mayoral candidate. However, its senior representatives indicated a possible election delay last week.
Pashinian and his entourage are reportedly having doubts about their nomination of Sarukhanian and ability to win the election. The presumptive mayoral candidate found himself in hot water two weeks ago after one of his cousins and another Civil Contract activist in Gyumri were detained by police on suspicion of drug possession and abuse.
Newspaper reports said that during a November 12 meeting of the ruling party’s governing board Pashinian ordered Sarukhanian to take a drug test to prove his assurances that he does not use banned substances. The test came back positive, according to them.
Armenia- Karen Sarukhanian attends a session of the Armenian parliament.
Sarukhanian has not explicitly denied those reports. Writing on Facebook on Thursday, he blasted “false information spread about me” but did not elaborate. He said he will “respond to those who intend to discredit me tomorrow evening.” He did not return phone calls from RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Friday.
Pashinian’s party signaled last week plans to delay the election of Gyumri’s new municipal council empowered to elect the mayor. One of its deputy chairmen, Vahagn Aleksanian, said the ballot cannot be held in the absence of an elected or interim head of the local community. He said Civil Contract therefore intends to enact legal amendments that would empower the government to appoint a caretaker mayor. Pashinian’s political team has not made further statements on the issue since then.
Local opposition groups have expressed concern about the possibility of an election delay, saying that the ruling party must not gain control of the municipal administration without an election. They want the snap vote to be held as soon as possible.