In near future the National Assembly perhaps by the second reading will adopt the law on Yerevan (full title – law on the local government and self-government bodies of Yerevan) as in the fall local government elections must be held in Armenia.
According to this legislation the future mayor of Yerevan shall be elected by the elderly council (hence Avagani). “The Avagani of Yerevan is a high-level local government body, which supervises the activity of the mayor of Yerevan, approves the budget of Yerevan and follows its implementation, approves the annual report of the budget fulfillment.” According to the same law the Avagani consists of 65 members and is elected by the order defined by the RA Electoral Code. Mayor of Yerevan is elected a person, who receives the majority of the votes of the Avagani. “If by the results of the elections of the Avagani of Yerevan one of the parties running in elections received over 50% of the seats of Avagani then the person, who is the first in the list of the candidates of that party, is elected mayor of Yerevan.” “If as a result of the elections of the Avagani of Yerevan no party receives over 50% of the votes of the Avagani then the factions of the Avagani of Yerevan may nominate the candidacy of the first candidate in their lists. If the latter refuses than this authority is going to be passed to the next person in the list. If one candidate is running the latter is elected mayor of Yerevan if he receives more for than against votes and his votes are more than 40% of the members of the Avagani of Yerevan,” cited from the law. The city will have its own budget, which will be formed based on the land taxes of Yerevan, property tax, profit and income taxes, nature protections payments, fines and penalties from citizens, who violate certain measure in the land of Yerevan as well as payments made by citizens for the rent or construction on the land of Yerevan. The budget is also formed by the incomes received from the property of Yerevan, allocations provided to organizations at the expense of the state budget, alienation of non-material assets and land, subsidies of the state budget, subventions, from official monetary grants, means in the form of loans and donations, state real estate rental or sale taxes as well as privatization of incompletely built constructions, means attained from the alienation of objects, etc. According to this law, the future mayor is also the head of the civil protection of Yerevan. Moreover, from now on the mayor of Yerevan will have more influence on the police and law-enforcing bodies. The mayor will have 5 deputies and huge personnel. This means that the mayor of Yerevan becomes a serious figure bearing enormous political responsibility. The mayor will be appointing the heads of the administrative territorial communities of Yerevan. Months ago the issue of uniting of certain communities was being discussed, however this issue was cancelled in the agenda after the parliamentary and especially presidential elections. This law on Yerevan has many shortcomings. One of the main shortcomings is that the candidate of mayor or the Avagani must have party affiliation. It means that the non-party members cannot occupy any role in the management of the Municipality. Of course, many people, whose participation in the management would have played a significant role, cannot be included among the management personnel. Besides that, practice showed that the single-mandate MP or the Avagani is more closely tied to people than someone elected by the proportional list. The majoritarian MP has more responsibility to residents and in the event of problems or requests citizens directly apply to him/her, which perhaps is a more democratic approach. Considering the number of votes, which were given to the oppositional candidate during the last presidential elections it is quite understandable that the opposition also has a great chance to be involvement in the management of the city through their participation in the Avagani. The opposition candidate, the first president of Armenia Levon Ter-Petrosyan has a large electorate in Yerevan, which cannot keep the government not to be concerned. And we are sure the opposition will not miss the opportunity of running for the mayor’s post. This is worth mentioning especially in the event of the enormous role of the mayor in the political field of Armenia as defined by the revised legislation. We shouldn’t forget that half of the population of Armenia lives in Yerevan. This includes the most politically active electorate. That is the reason why there is assumption that the Prosperous Armenia, the Republican, Legal State and the ARF made the coalition of cooperation to have a weighty role in the race for the mayor’s post. They may run in a joint proportional list in the Avagani and mayor’s elections. It’s not yet known, who is going to lead this list. Many names are being circulated, however at present it wouldn’t be very serious to refer to these names at this stage. Now these are just dreams of certain people and behind-door conversations of certain officials. One thing is clear for sure. Both the government and the opposition should figure out during this period the format of their participation in the elections of the mayor and the Avagani. In our internal political lives this issue will become a top issue. Judging from the activeness of certain members of the Heritage party they are preparing for these elections. No less active are other NA party representatives or non-parliamentary forces. The parties of the coalition agreement have already started negotiating who to nominate in the list. Therefore, only in half of year we will be witnessing another important election, which with its importance is relevant to the next national elections.
P.S. The first day of the elections of the elderly council members of Yerevan is defined by the RA Government decision, which can be conducted no earlier than July 8 of 2008 and no later than January 1 of 2009.