The best assessment of the local elections held in Armenia on Sunday was given by Nikol Pashinyan himself, who actually admitted that the rulingCivic Contract party had failed, opposition lawmaker from 'Armenia' bloc Artur Khachatryan told a briefing in parliament. In the words of Khachatryan, Pashinyan was trying to justify the defeat by their busy activities around external challenges.
The MP remarked that authorities were denying the case of vote-buying, however, both in yesterday's and previous local elections the state was quite generous in offering social assistance to residents of the same communities which couldn't come as a coincidence.
Moreover, per Khachaturian, authorities mobilized all administrative resources prior to and during the elections, yet they lost the elections in 15 communities out of 36.
He reminded that opposition forces can gain majority in Council of elders of 8 communities and in 13 if they form coalitions. In total, the opposition can theoretically get control of the power in 21 communities, he added.