ArmInfo.Masis Mayilyan’s refusal to participate in the second round of the presidential election in Artsakh goes beyond standard scenarios. Political strategist Vigen Hakobyan expressed a similar opinion to ArmInfo.
As a result of the presidential elections held in Artsakh on March 31, not one of the candidates won 50% of the vote. The second round of voting is planned for Arayik Harutyunyan (with the most votes in the first round, 49.6% ) and Masis Mayilyan (26.7% ). However, on April 5, Masis Mayilyan called on the Artsakh people to boycott the second round, making it impossible to carry out the threat of the spread of the coronavirus.
“Taking into account the results of the first round and already noticeable serious disagreements in the tandem of Masis Mayilian – Samvel Babayan, the outcome of the second round was any case predetermined. I do not exclude the situation in which Mayilyan could refuse the second round with the filing of Yerevan. Moreover, since according to available information, both he and Harutyunyan left for Yerevan after the election, “Hakobyan noted.
The political strategist explains Harutyunyan’s success in the first round by two years of his work in this direction, accompanied by a rejection of the image of a government official and, accordingly, from an official point of view on a number of issues. In this light, he highlighted certain problems observed in the same period between Stepanakert and Yerevan and, of course, his financial and administrative resources, the latter first of all, consisted of the heads of rural and urban communities, who are members of Harutyunyan’s “Free Homeland” party.
Among the features of the first round, the political strategist singled out Yerevan’s rather loyal attitude towards Harutyunyan. The latter, in turn, stated that he might not agree with the Armenian authorities on one single issue – Artsakh’s issue. According to the political strategist, Harutyunyan thus hinted that his position as President of Artsakh in resolving the conflict with Azerbaijan could be tougher than the position of Armenia.
“Thus, Harutyunyan makes it clear about the possibility of the distribution of roles between Yerevan and Stepanakert in the negotiations on the Artsakh issue. Such tactics have been repeatedly used in the negotiations, both as a result of coordination and as a unilateral initiative of the Artsakh authorities. It is known that the position of Yerevan and Stepanakert did not always coincide. These relations were especially difficult during the presidency of Levon Ter-Petrosyan,” Hakobyan concluded.
Parliamentary elections are over in Artsakh and five political forces have won seats in the National Assembly of Nagorno-Karabakh. These are: the political alliance representing the Free Fatherland and Christian-Democratic parties received 40.4% of ballots, the United Fatherland party – 23,63% of ballots, the Justice party of Artsakh – 7.9%, the ARF-D – 6.4% and the Democratic Party of Artsakh – 5.81%.