President Serzh Sargsyan signed the law on Yerevan adopted by the parliament during the latest extraordinary session of last year (Law on Local Government in Yerevan). Definitely the election of Yerevan mayor will take place in June-July. Currently politicians are trying to figure out who the potential candidates will be. By the way, there are rumors that first president Levon Ter-Petrosyan may be nominated for mayor. His spokesperson Arman Musinyan refused to comment on the mentioned information. “I don’t comment on frivolous information,” he said. In answer to a question whether the Armenian National Congress (ANC) will nominate anyone for mayor he said the following: “Of course, we will take part in the electoral competition, but it is soon to speak about it. A lot of things will change till that time.”
There are also rumors that the head of Heritage party Raffi Hovhannisyan is going to run for the mayor’s office too. The head of Heritage faction does not exclude such possibility either and says that it is not time yet to speak of such possibility. “At present it is not clear yet what will be the list of the community council candidates proposed by Heritage party. But I think that Heritage party will be very active in the mayoral election,” said A. Martirosyan.
Currently there are rumors that very soon the head of Kentron community Gagik Beglaryan will be appointed mayor (even maybe next week). It is also possible that such rumors may be spread by Gagik Beglaryan, who dreams of being the mayor of Yerevan. People say that the mayoral election and competition are going to be as active as the presidential rival. Thus, the authorities are seriously thinking of nominating a competent candidate. If during the presidential election all the representatives of governmental powers were working for one candidate, now it is possible that they may divide and each of them may endorse their own candidate. In other words, it is possible that the governmental resources may be divided. Many people from the government don’t want Gagik Beglaryan to run for mayor because they think that he is not competent for this position because the new elected mayor of Yerevan will be a significant political figure entrusted with a wide range of rights. Half of the citizens of Armenia are concentrated in Yerevan, and the citizens of Yerevan are the most politically active sector of our society. Other possible candidates are the head of Avan community Taron Margaryan and the head of Legal State party Artur Baghdasaryan. There were even rumors that the head of the president’s office Karen Karapetyan might run for mayor, but he came up with an announcement and refuted such rumors.