Yesterday the National Assembly organized hearings on the bill on Local Self-Governance and Territorial Administration.
Shortly said, they were discussing a bill, which should have been adopted so much longer as defined by the requirements of the revised Constitution. Representatives of various organizations and interested groups were invited. Reminder: As a result of the amendment of the Constitution in 2005 Yerevan attained a status of a community, according to which the mayor of Yerevan must hence be elected instead of being appointed. This requirement was included in the transition provisions of the Constitution and should have been adopted by November 2007. However, the government submitted the bill to the NA with a major delay. And despite the fact that the bill was adopted by the first reading months ago its adoption by the second reading was delayed for quite awhile. And as the Speaker of the NA Hovik Abrahamyan declared during the previous sessions an extraordinary NA session will be convened to discuss the bill at the end of December. Thus, after the adoption of this law in Yerevan first elections of the elderly council must be held. The election will be held in a proportional system and exclusively by party lists. The votes of the council members will be proportionally distributed based on the votes gathered by parties or alliances. The council of Yerevan will consist of 65 members and will be the highest body of local government. The Council members must elect a mayor among themselves. After the adoption of the Constitution a tense debate broke whether the mayor should be elected by the council members or the citizens directly. According to this bill the election of the mayor will be held based on the votes of the council members. Nearly half of the country’s population is centered in the capital city. Our government mostly has problems with dealing with the city voters. In these conditions it would be a great risk for the government to hold direct elections of the mayor of Yerevan as that way it would be harder to falsify their votes. What if the government is not able to make his desirable candidate win and some opposition representative is elected in the background of protests and complaints that exist among the city residents? Perhaps this is the reason why the government ended up electing the mayor through the council. Besides that if the mayor was elected by the people it would be hard to control him because he would be a powerful figure due to his post. In regard of the council the chance of making the desirable candidate win enhances. Plus it becomes easy to control him. 22 members of the council may recall the mayor. The government will have at least 22 council members in their control in case if the mayor refuses to obey. The main issue discussed during yesterday’s hearing was the direct election of the mayor of Yerevan. “In general the legislative body, in this case the Parliament of Yerevan, is established as a representative body, not to be interested in the contents of law, but to be guided by principles. It is evident that the main forces involved in the elaboration of this bill are interested in this law, that is to say they wrote the bill for themselves, but it must have been for Yerevan and the citizens of Yerevan. This is the main issue. According to the new Constitution Yerevan has become a Community and we already have a tradition of forming communities, even if not perfect, still a tradition, according to which the head of the community is elected by direct elections. The activity of the council is guided by the leaders of the communities. Consequently that representative body can’t be counterbalance and supervise it. That is to say the mechanism of the counterbalance doesn’t work perfectly. Yerevan is becoming a community. And we are annihilating the existing mechanism of counterbalance instead of making it perfect. The representative body, the council of the aldermen, elects the Major. This doesn’t contribute to the development of democracy,” said the leader of “National Self-Determination Union”, Paruyr Hayrikyan. “The mayor of Yerevan must be elected directly because he/she must have the direct vote of the citizen. And that will be the best warranty for the mayor to be strong and work well. Every politician or statesmen serves for the ones, who vote for him/her. If the statesman is elected by the bribe he/she will serve the money. If he was elected by the council he will serve the council. And if the mayor is elected by the people he will serve the people. This is an axiom. Today we are trying to raise the reputation of the NA but I think this can happen only when the parliament is formed in a free and transparent way. So this doesn’t happen with the NA now. I would like the mayor’s institute to appear in the same state,” stated the head of the Heritage faction Armen Martirosyan. The presenter of the project, deputy-minister of territorial administration Vache Terteryan wasn’t able to bring up any substantial reason why the mayor should be elected by the council and not the citizens directly. He was constantly repeating that there are many successful cases like that in the world. Terteryan also thinks that in the event of direct elections the citizens will have a hard time picking candidates. “As an expert my personal formulation is the following – it is hard to find the criteria and principles of choosing a community head, which has 1-1.5 million people. They say that the most democratic way is to conduct elections directly. But what if direct elections turn out to be spontaneous? Let’s we remember that he elect community heads directly. In a city with a population of over a million the direct elections may be risky. In this case we will have to deal with who’s more popular in town and the votes will be subjective. Can you imagine some famous actor elected mayor of Yerevan? Is it good or bad? We are electing a representative of the executive branch not a famous man or a charismatic leader. I intend to see a manager and someone, who has a great experience in managing instead of a party leader,” says Mr. Terteryan. This project has another interesting side. If one of the parties during elections receives the majority of votes then the first member of the party list will automatically become mayor of Yerevan. But if in the result of elections and mandate sharing any of the parties receives over 40% then the majority of the seats of the council will be given to the party. This combination the government names a bonus. It means absolute majority or 50+1% of the council candidates will be given to the political party, which receives 40% of the seats. The majority of the discussion participants were dissatisfied with this bonus. “We don’t elect directly and plus we give them a bonus. In that case where did the opinion of the citizen go? If we add up all these facts we will see that we are going to have a mayor or council, which will be totally independent from the citizen and will thus not reflect the interests of the citizens. I think that the adoption of the law is in benefit to the government because this bonus system will enable them to pick their own mayor. By using their administrative resources,, falsifications, bribes and intimidation the government will definitely be able to gain 40% of the votes. Don’t you think that this bonus system will be applied to enable the leading parties and the government choose their own candidate for the mayor’s post?” asked Martirosyan. We’d also like to add that the mayor’s candidate must be over 30. Yerevan will have its own budget. The council and the mayor will hold office for a four-year term. The council may once a year attempt to impeach the mayor. But besides the attempt to impeach they should also present their own candidate. The government may dissolve thee council if it fails to hold a session and make a decision within 4 months. The NA may have factions and committees just like the parliament. The council will be working on public principles but will be compensated for their work at the expense of the Yerevan budget. The MPs think that the mayor and the council members must be paid well in order not to be tempted by corruption. The hearings of the bill at the parliament will continue today as well and on December 22 an extraordinary session will be summoned at the NA.