Gyumri is a kind of Waterloo for Pashinyan — Artak Avetisyan

On March 30, extraordinary City Council elections will be held in the communities of Parakar in the Armavir region and Gyumri in the Shirak region. The election campaign in the regions started on March 15. Alpha News discussed this topic with independent expert Artak Avetisyan, who also touched upon the pre-election debates of the Gyumri mayoral candidates held the previous day.

“All the published opinion polls were manipulative and propagandistic. No real or thorough calculations were made. All the calculations were made the way they needed,” he emphasized.

He noted that boycotting the television debates, as mayoral candidate Vardan Ghukasyan did, was more correct.

“If the debates changed anything, it was in relation to the three candidates. I won’t say whether the opinion about Vardan Ghukasyan changed in a positive or negative direction, but his non-participation was in some sense better than participation. The attitude towards Sarik Minasyan and Ruben Mkhitaryan changed. It was not possible to hold constructive debates around their programs because, firstly, the debate format was different. The speakers’ thoughts remained unfinished, they did not have time to finish their speeches. All this was periodically interrupted by the controversy between the candidate from the government and the candidate from the opposition, who argued and shouted. The rest of the participants, by and large, did not have time to say anything,” Artak Avetisyan said.

According to an independent expert, if arrests and repressions do not begin in Gyumri after these elections, they will occur in the capital in a few months.

“Gyumri is a kind of Waterloo for Pashinyan, which will lead to his downfall. While others may achieve quantitative victories, the ultimate ‘victory’ will still belong to the authorities—if they resort to total pressure, repression and arrests, because such developments are expected. If this does not happen in Gyumri, then in a few months it will happen in Yerevan,” Artak Avetisyan concluded.