In Gyumri’s municipal elections, no single candidate secured a majority vote, with five parties passing the electoral threshold, according to preliminary results from the Central Election Commission.
The results from all 81 precincts show the following distribution of votes:
- Sarik Minasyan, “Civil Contract”– 36.21%
- Vardan Ghukasyan, “The communist party”– 20.5%
- Martun Grigoryan, “Our city Alliance”– 15.5%
- Ruben Mkhitaryan, “My strong community party” – 8.08%
- Karen Simonyan, “Mother Armenia” Alliance– 6.11%
As the vote count indicates, no single party has secured an outright majority in the Gyumri Council of Elders. The final distribution of council mandates will depend on coalition agreements and negotiations.
“Mother Armenia” bloc and the “My Strong Community” party have announced their support for Vardan Ghukasyan, while Martun Grigoryan, the mayoral candidate from the “Our City” alliance, reaffirmed his stance against the ruling Civil Contract Party’s leadership in Gyumri.
“Dear Gyumri residents, I reiterate what I said: the Civil Contract Party will not have a mayor in Gyumri—that’s for sure,” Grigoryan stated in a Facebook post.
“I am ready, along with our council members, without any preconditions and without seeking any position, to vote in favor of the opposition mayoral candidate Vardan Ghukasyan, who received the most votes from the people of Gyumri,” Ruben Mkhitaryan, the head of “My Strong Community” wrote on Facebook.
Karen Simonyan from “Mother Armenia” bloc also stated that every action they take will be aimed at “depriving the Civil Contract party of power.”
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan congratulated the political forces and candidates who won the elections.
Sarik Minasyan, the candidate of the ruling Civil Contract party, who received 36.21% of the votes, also expressed his gratitude on Facebook, stating: “We will not waste the votes given to us; they will serve Gyumri and all its residents. We will continue all our programs for the development and prosperity of Gyumri.”
If the opposition unites in Gyumri, their votes will be enough to elect Vardan Ghukasyan as mayor in the first round. In this scenario, the Civil Contract party, which received 36% of the votes, will become the opposition in the country’s second-largest city.
If Vardan Ghukasyan does not secure at least 17 votes from the 33-member city council, a second round of mayoral elections will be held.
