May

20

Uncontested: With no opposition, Republicans retain power in four Yerevan districts in mostly ‘one-horse’ races

Filed Under ArmeniaNow Weekly 

Uncontested: With no opposition, Republicans retain power in four Yerevan districts in mostly ‘one-horse’ racesDespite opposition claims that they would mount challenge to incumbents in elections of all levels, the Sunday elections in four districts of Yerevan typically took place without a single opposition candidate.

According to preliminary results released by the Central Election Commission, winners in all the four communities, including Avan, Malatia-Sebastia, Davidashen and Nork-Marash, are members of the governing Republican Party of Armenia (RPA).

Incumbent Taron Margaryan, the son of the late Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan, was returned to his post in Avan, Artur Gevorgyan (a nephew of large businessman Ruben Gevorgyan who holds sway in Davidashen), David Ohanyan and Varazdat Mkrtchyan won elections in Davidashen, Malatia-Sebastia and Nork-Marash, respectively. Elections in three of the four districts took place with only one candidate on the ballot-paper, with the exception of Nork-Marash, where three candidates had run for the post.

In conditions of an emergency rule following the March 1 melee, President Serzh Sargsyan said the upcoming local elections could prove a good opportunity for the opposition.

“Let them participate, win and show themselves, gain experience and prepare for the next parliamentary and presidential elections,” Sargsyan said in a televised question-and-answer session March 14.

For his part, opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosyan made remarks in public earlier this month about the likelihood of opposition candidates’ participation in all upcoming elections.

“The popular movement will have a permanent and decisive role to play in all future political processes in Armenia due to wide-ranging public support it enjoys, including by participating with joint candidates or with a common slate in forthcoming elections at all levels,” Ter-Petrosyan stated May 2 at the second congress of more than two dozen political parties and organizations that had supported his presidential bid in the February 19 election.

However, as opposition representatives claim, it was next to impossible for the opposition to participate in the Sunday elections.

“Potential candidates are either locked up in jails or are in the underground,” senior member of the opposition Hanrapetutyun party Suren Surenyants told ArmeniaNow.

Surenyants still insists that the opposition will participate in all forthcoming elections providing “serious competition”.

“On May 25, Mesrop Mesropyan will represent the opposition in the mayoral elections in Hrazdan where there will be serious election struggle between the government and opposition candidates,” Surenyants says. “But how do the authorities imagine opposition involvement in the absence of a normal atmosphere in this situation?”

Lawmaker from the RPA Armen Ashotyan gives assurances that the problem is not in the “atmosphere” but in the opposition’s being unprepared for local elections.

“Political reasons are exploited as an excuse for [opposition’s] being unprepared. Or perhaps they think of a permanent political struggle?” Ashotyan told ArmeniaNow. “In any case, local elections may provide a good ground for the opposition’s serious involvement in political struggle during parliamentary elections in four years’ time and then in presidential elections.”

The Republican lawmaker says “serious struggle” is likely already this fall when elections are due in nearly 700 communities.

By Marianna Grigoryan
ArmeniaNow reporter
Source: http://www.armenianow.com

Permanent link:  http://www.armpress.com/armenianow/2008/05/20/1111/

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