Although these were not national elections but taking into account that almost half of the country’s population is concentrated in the capital city the ruling Republican Party did its best to provide its victory in this race. During the local government elections of the past year the RPA also did its best to have victory. The party is preparing for the upcoming parliamentary elections of 2012 with the same expectation. Prior to that the RPA is fortified its positions in the local governments. The evidence of that are the last local government elections in select communities of Armenia. In May 25 local government elections were held in Armenia, where in 17 communities heads were elected Republicans. For comparison let us mention that out of 25 only 3 are heads of the second ruling party of Armenia – Prosperous Armenia. The next 5 heads of communities are non-partisan. In the May race the RPA received 68% and the Prosperous Armenia – only 12%. So the struggle for power is proceeding in these conditions. And indeed there is going to be the essential participation of the opposition. Let us also add that during the 5 months of 2010 local government elections were held in 51 communities of Armenia and in 32 of those the RPA had victory by providing the party 62% victory. During the same period community heads were elected 5 Prosperous Armenia members, which is only 10%. The picture becomes more impressive when we review all the big and small communities as a whole. Thus, in 566 out of 913 communities, mayors or community heads are RPA members. In 203 communities the heads are non-partisan and 54 are ARF members. Surprisingly, despite the fact that the ARF deflected from the coalition the internal circles of the party still remain in power. There are 20 heads of communities from the Legal State party. According to these data there are 62 Prosperous Armenia members, who head communities. However, the press secretary of the Prosperous Armenia Khachik Galstyan said that the party had 80 heads of communities. At any rate, the power levers have been quite unevenly shared among the government coalition parties. And guided by the same logic we may assume that the RPA is going to inline for as many seats as possible during the upcoming elections. To say that the above-mentioned data demonstrate at least the approximate picture of the desire of the Armenian voters would be definitely wrong because everybody knows that the ruling parties apply all kinds of means to reach their goals. Based on the fact that 33 out of 48 mayors of Armenia are RPA members gives us evident grounds to assume that the RPA will once again try to form a majority in the parliament by applying its administrative levers. Besides Yerevan the mayors of the second and third largest cities of Armenia – Gyumri and Vanadzor, are also Republicans. The RPA members are also mayors of Artashat, Armavir, Vayk, Jermuk, Goris, Meghri, Dilijan, Berd, Alaverdi, Artik, Aparan, Talin and 33 other cities. The mayor of Hrazdan city located in Kotayk, which is a marz that traditionally endorses Gagik Tsarukyan, is also an RPA member. And the Prosperous Armenia only has 6 mayors. 9 out of the 12 districts of Yerevan are also headed by the successors of Nzhdeh’s ideology. In Yerevan and in the mentioned cities lives the most part of RA population and the RPA will try to provide majority by applying its administrative levers. Indeed, the Prosperous Armenia will try to do so as well or at least maintain its seats in the parliament. At any rate the upcoming parliamentary elections are going to be tense in the aspect of the struggle between the RPA and the Prosperous Armenia especially when they say this is going to be a competition between Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan. In order to reproduce its power the RPA once again relies only on itself by providing votes through its mayors and heads of villages. In this case a head of a village may be more important for the RPA than for example, the minister of economy Nerses Yeritsyan. Or a mayor of some city may provide as many votes as Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan. That is why the RPA is fortifying its positions locally. Will the above-mentioned proportionality be maintained during the parliamentary elections 2012? The spokesperson of the Prosperous Armenia Khachik Galstyan doesn’t agree that the RPA will maintain its majority. “Taking into account the fact that those are elected officials they have certain support from their electorate. This becomes important during the local elections when people vote for a person. But when it comes to electing a political team the picture drastically changes. It seems that the national elections are the clear reflection of the local elections, however in our country national elections drastically differ with their strategies I don’t think that the same proportionality will remain in the parliament. Greater attention is paid to national elections as the political forces are preparing more seriously. Maybe the opposition has 2-3 heads of villages in the communities but it doesn’t mean that this is the picture of the support of the population to the opposition,” says Galstyan. The RPA spokesman Edward Sharmazanov didn’t wish to make predictions but said that the “dynamics” is positive for his party. “I can only say that the local government elections, which have been quite successful for us show that the majority of our society supports the RPA candidates. Let’s hope that this dynamics will maintain during the parliamentary elections as well. These elections have showed once again that we are on the right track,” added Sharmazanov.
P.S. Let us limit the range of the interesting data from the RPA office with one datum – the ANM has one head of village. He is the head of Bavra village of Ashotsk district. And the name of this person is Koryun Sumbulyan.