The ruling Civil Contract party has held primaries for the first time from 8-10 December in Armenia’s second largest city, Gyumri, to determine the acting mayor. The competition was held between seven candidates, each of which were supposed to be Civil Contract party members or party supporters. 

During the three-day period, Civil Contract representatives approached randomly selected residents of Gyumri and asked them to cast a ballot. A total of 1,050 residents participated in the elections, with independent candidate Sarik Minasyan receiving the most votes.

Minasyan is the head of the Gyumri regional centre of the Labour Ministry’s Unified Social Service. Previously, he was an MP representing the Bright Armenia party and, from 2013 to 2017, the head of the Budget Revenue Collection And Registration Department at Gyumri City Hall.

Among the other candidates were two MPs from the Civil Contract faction, as well as former Deputy Mayor of Gyumri Vahagn Mkrtchyan.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan first announced that the party would hold primaries, an unprecedented procedure, in Gyumri in a Facebook video at the end of November.

A few days later, he noted in Parliament that the party had come to the conclusion that it was ‘a good opportunity to introduce another democratic institution in Armenia’, whereby citizens could have the opportunity to vote and make a decision even in the candidate selection process. 

Pashinyan also stated that the winner would be appointed the acting mayor of Gyumri, and would ‘most likely also be our candidate’ in the upcoming elections scheduled to take place in 2026. He noted that if the process was successful, they could apply it in other communities too.

A political crisis emerges in Gyumri

The political crisis in Gyumri began in October when Civil Contract announced the termination of a cooperation memorandum signed in 2021 on the joint administration of Gyumri and the resignation of Gyumri’s two deputy mayors. The ruling party claimed that the reason behind these decisions was that Gyumri was ‘under shadow management’, but did not clarify who specifically they meant. 

The final round of the crisis kicked off when criminal charges were brought against former Gyumri Mayor Samvel Balasanyan, Balasanyan’s son, and their associates. Balasanyan was Gyumri’s Mayor from 2012 to 2021.

A few weeks later, Gyumri’s then Mayor Vardges Samsonyan and all 13 council members of the Balasanyan Alliance, affiliated with Balasanyan, submitted their resignations without any public comment on their decision.

Although the ruling party denied that the criminal case had a political context, local media speculated that the Balasanyan Alliance’s resignations were part of a plan by the ruling Civil Contract party to hold snap elections in order to ‘hand over’ the governance of Gyumri to its party. 

Despite Pashinyan’s attempts to frame the move as a democratic development, opposition-leaning media have argued that Minasyan’s appointment is beneficial for Pashinyan.

According to them, Minasyan’s appointment ‘will show’ the international community and the residents of Armenia that Pashinyan ‘is extremely democratic since he entrusts the position of acting mayor to a non-partisan [figure]’. Additionally, Pashinyan’s government would show that they did not ‘seize positions at any cost’.

Pashinyan’s government came under criticism in December 2023, when it ousted an opposition mayor in Alaverdi with heavy police presence. Critics accused the government of political pressure and blackmail in the regions, with several rights organisations condemning the government’s ‘anti-democratic interference’ in Alaverdi’s local government.