There were incomparably fewer violations of Electoral Code in Gyumri — Artak Avetisyan

Local self-government elections were held in the Gyumri community on March 30. As a result, five political forces—the Civil Contract party, the Communist Party of Armenia, the Our City party bloc, My Powerful Community party, and the Mother Armenia Alliance—were elected to the Gyumri City Council. Alpha News spoke to independent expert Artak Avetisyan on this topic.

“For me, the only issue that remains unresolved is the issue of people added to the lists, which has escaped everyone’s attention. I would check and follow up to see if people were actually added at different addresses. We identified one major breach. However, in other cases the violations were minor, and therefore the violations of the Electoral Code were significantly fewer,” Avetisyan said.

Discussing the low voter turnout, the expert noted that many individuals on the voter lists are currently outside Armenia—approximately 30% of those eligible to vote.

“Unlike in 2021, the high level of participation in these elections was due to the number of parties and the people leading those parties. As many people participated as was logically possible in Gyumri,” Avetisyan concluded.