By Andranik Aboyan
Armenia’s second-largest city, Gyumri, has been left in political limbo for almost a month, as the central government dithers over whether to hold a snap election. With no clear answers emerging by Friday afternoon, it’s evident that the state, once again, is more concerned with consolidating its power than upholding democratic processes.
The anticipated election was meant to take place by late December or early January, after a government crackdown on businessman Samvel Balasanyan, whose bloc had run the city until last month. Balasanyan, charged with illegally privatizing municipal land back in 2014, became the target of a political maneuver designed to strip local power from independent or opposition-aligned figures. In the wake of these charges, Gyumri’s mayor, Vardges Samsonyan, along with his deputies and city council members, were forced to resign, effectively vacating the local administration.
What followed was a swift yet cynical move by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract party, which wasted no time preparing for the snap election. The party quickly handpicked Karen Sarukhanyan, head of its Gyumri chapter, as its mayoral candidate. But soon enough, cracks appeared in this carefully orchestrated plan. Internal doubts surfaced within the ruling party, casting uncertainty on Sarukhanian’s ability to secure a victory. These doubts intensified after Sarukhanyan’s involvement in a scandal, with his cousin and another party activist detained on drug charges—a convenient distraction for a regime that seems to thrive on scandal to maintain its control.
To further degrade any semblance of democracy, the ruling party’s governing board convened on November 12, where Pashinyan ordered Sarukhanyan to take a drug test. The result? Positive. This, of course, was just another chapter in the ongoing farce that passes for governance in Armenia, where the political elite has no shame in exploiting personal issues to sideline inconvenient figures. Meanwhile, the state apparatus itself—constantly operating under the guise of democracy—prepares to bypass elections altogether.
The government’s solution? Delay the election, of course. Deputy Chairman of Civil Contract, Vahagn Aleksanyan, announced that the ballot cannot be held without a local head of community—one that, conveniently, the government is free to appoint as a caretaker mayor. In other words, democracy is nothing more than a tool to be wielded at will. Through legal amendments and executive fiat, the government can ensure that, even if the people of Gyumri are denied their right to choose, the ruling party still has a firm grip on power.
Local opposition groups have expressed concern, but their voices are unlikely to make a difference in a political system that has long since abandoned any pretense of fairness. As the government drags its feet, it’s becoming clear that the civil contract under which Armenia’s people are governed is nothing more than a sham, one that perpetuates the abuse of state power in the name of “order” and “democracy.” The real question is not whether the election will take place, but whether the people of Gyumri will ever truly have a voice in the political system that claims to represent them.
