Yerevan City Council’s election campaign poses serious questions about its impartiality and independence that we keep hearing from May 17th. The campaign has not even finished, and each day presents new unexpected violations. In order to gain political capital, this election, that one may argue sets the tone for the upcoming national elections, must have unequivocally followed the rule of law. Yet, that’s not the case. The Revolutionary government takes no effort to follow even basic ethical norms and violates the provisions of the Electoral Code. The biggest hypocrisy is the fact that the main violator is the state leader—Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
By participating in the City Council election campaign, Mr. Pashinyan in essence use abuses his executive resources. Perhaps if he wasn’t participating in the election campaign so aggressively, his election violations could have gone unnoticed. However, he is violating the election law, as he is relying on executive resources to campaign and support only one particular candidate (see Armenian Electoral Code, Article 23.1).
Furthermore, by supporting a specific political party, Mr. Pashinyan essentially acts in his capacity as the Prime Minister and issues orders in his official capacity (See Electoral Code, Article 23.3.1). His orders are so ridiculous that even people under his direct subordination question those orders.
What are the safeguards that the executive resources the Prime Minister is relying upon to influence the City Council’s election now will not be continuously used for the same goals in other rounds of these elections, let alone during the upcoming parliamentary elections?
MARIAM ARAKELYAN