Monday, Armenian Students Sent Home Amid COVID-19 Resurgence Armenia - Children play basketball at a school in the town of Gavar, March 9, 2021. The Armenian Ministry of Education ordered universities to revert to online classes and extended school holidays on Monday as health authorities struggled to contain a new wave of coronavirus infections in the country. The order, effective from Tuesday, requires all universities and colleges to offer their students only distance courses until November 15. It also means that a one-week autumn break in Armenia’s primary, secondary high schools, which began on Monday, will be extended until November 7. The Armenian educational institutions will thus be effectively closed for the first time since October 2020. The authorities began reopening them in December after coronavirus cases peaked during the war in Nagorno-Karabakh. The authorities have reported similarly large numbers of cases and resulting deaths in recent weeks. According to the Ministry of Health, over 13,000 people in the country of about 3 million have tested positive for COVID-19 and at least 250 of them have died in the past week. Forty-two of those deaths were recorded on Sunday. Health Minister Anahit Avanesian warned that Armenian hospitals are “on the verge” of running out of vacant beds for COVID-19 patients. Her ministry already reported a shortage of beds more than a week ago. It said hundreds of infected people in need of urgent care are awaiting hospitalization because of that. In a Facebook post, Avanesian urged Armenians to “put on masks everywhere” and get vaccinated. The minister faced criticism on social media on Monday after it emerged that she and other senior government officials did not wear masks during an indoor reception hosted by President Armen Sarkissian and attended by more than 100 people. Most ordinary Armenians also do not wear mandatory masks indoors, including in overcrowded public buses. Authorities essentially stopped fining them more than a year ago. Also, Armenia continues to have the lowest vaccination rate in the region. Ministry of Health data shows that 466,785 people received at least one dose of a coronavirus vaccine and only about 210,250 of them were fully vaccinated as of October 24. Vaccinations have accelerated over the past month after the authorities began requiring all public and private sector employees to get inoculated or take coronavirus tests twice a month at their own expense. Gyumri Election Winner Still Mum On New Mayor • Satenik Kaghzvantsian Armenia -An election campaign poster of the Balasanian Bloc and its mayoral candidate Vardges Samsonian in Gyumri, . The political force that won the October 17 municipal election in Gyumri has yet to clarify whether it will team up with the ruling Civil Contract party or an opposition group to install the new mayor of Armenia’s second largest city. Gyumri has been run by Samvel Balasanian, a local businessman, for the last nine years. He used to be allied to the former Armenian government that helped him win reelection in 2016. Although Balasanian decided not to seek another term in office, a newly created bloc bearing his name joined the mayoral race. The Balasanian Bloc garnered 36.6 percent of the vote, earning it 14 seats in the 33-member city council empowered to elect the mayor. In what is widely seen as a serious setback for Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, Civil Contract finished second with 11 seats. The remaining eight seats will be distributed among three opposition parties. One of them, Zartonk (Awakening), will be represented in the local council by four members. Zartonk proposed last week a coalition deal to the Balasanian Bloc which would allow the latter’s top election candidate, Vardges Samsonian, to become mayor. The bloc has still not responded to the offer. “We don’t have a decision at the moment,” a spokesman for the Balasanian Bloc, Arman Shaboyan, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Monday. “We are holding discussions within our team.” The new city council is scheduled to hold its inaugural session on November 4. According to some media reports, the Balasanian Bloc is facing strong pressure from the central government to reach a power-sharing deal with Pashinian’s party and even cede the post of mayor to it. The bloc has not officially reacted to those reports. Civil Contract has not commented on its post-election plans in Gyumri. Its mayoral candidate, Hovannes Harutiunian, is the governor of surrounding Shirak province. Samvel Balasanian, the outgoing mayor, has made no public statements on the outcome of the local election. Balasanian has avoided openly challenging the current Armenian government ever since he took office in 2018. Pashinian Stands By Ambitious Growth Target • Robert Zargarian Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian is about to present his government's draft 2022 budget to members of the Armenian parliament, Yerevan, October 25, 2021. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian said on Monday that his government expects the Armenian economy to continue its recovery from a coronavirus-related recession and grow by 7 percent next year. The economy shrunk by 7.6 percent last year due to negative effects of the coronavirus pandemic compounded by Armenia’s war with Azerbaijan. It returned to growth this spring and is now projected to expand by at least 6 percent in 2021. Both the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund anticipate slower growth in 2022. The bank forecast a 4.8 percent growth rate for the South Caucasus nation in a report released earlier this month. A senior IMF official similarly predicted last month that Armenian growth will slow down to 4.5 percent in 2022. “Downside risks remain elevated, including from geopolitical tensions, a slowdown in external demand, and heightened global financial market volatility,” he said. The Armenian government’s five-year policy program approved by the parliament in August says that GDP should increase by 7 percent annually. Pashinian stood by this ambitious target when he presented the government’s draft 2022 budget to lawmakers. “Although most of the current year was marked by an unstable political and security environment, our economy is now exceeding all growth forecasts made for 2021,” he said. “On the other hand, based on this year’s results, the government hopes for more.” The draft budget commits Armenian tax authorities to increasing state revenue by as much as 25 percent next year. This would not only finance a 15 percent rise in public spending but also cut the country’s budget deficit that widened significantly during the recession. The bill does not envisage major pay rises for public sector employees and would keep the national minimum wage unchanged at 68,000 drams ($143) per month. The government is only planning to raise the minimum pension by 2,100 drams. Consumer price inflation in Armenia has risen significantly this year, reaching an annual rate of about 9 percent in August on the back of increased food prices. Yerevan Comments On ‘Fresh Deals’ With Baku • Artak Khulian • Naira Nalbandian RUSSIA -- Russian President Vladimir Putin meets with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian in the Krelmin, January 11, 2021. The Armenian government reacted over the weekend to reports that the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan will meet in Moscow next month to sign two more far-reaching agreements. Aliqmedia.am said that Russian President Vladimir Putin will host on November 9 fresh talks between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev that will be timed to coincide with the first anniversary of a Russian-brokered deal that stopped the war in Nagorno-Karabakh. Citing unnamed Armenian diplomatic sources, the publication claimed that Aliyev and Pashinian will sign two agreements envisaging the demarcation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and the opening of transport links between the two South Caucasus states. It said one of those documents will also commit Baku and Yerevan to recognizing each other’s territorial integrity. The Russian news agency RIA Novosti likewise reported afterwards that Aliyev and Pashinian could meet in Moscow in early November. Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov did not confirm that report. He said that the Kremlin will make an official statement on the Armenian-Azerbaijani summit if an agreement on its date and agenda is reached by the sides. The Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesman, Vahan Hunanian, said, for his part, that “for the time being no meeting between the prime minister of Armenia and the president of Azerbaijan is planned.” “There are proposals for various meetings in different formats, which are being discussed,” Hunanian said in written comments posted on Facebook. “I would also like to underline that the ‘news’ spread on this topic by some circles are clearly of provocative nature and do not correspond to reality,” added the official. Hunanian stressed at the same time that Yerevan is committed to starting work on border demarcation and reopening the Armenian-Azerbaijani frontier for cargo traffic in line with the ceasefire deal brokered by Putin. Pashinian did not comment on the issue on Monday when he visited the Armenian parliament to present his government’s draft budget for next year to lawmakers. He declined to answer questions from them or talk to reporters. Deputies representing the ruling Civil Contract party either claimed to be unaware of any planned deals with Baku or did not want to comment on such a possibility. “I am waiting to see the content of a document that will be presented to us by our government,” said Hrachya Hakobian, who is also Pashinian’s brother-in-law. “I don’t want to comment now on what foreign media outlets report.” Armenia - Senor lawmakers from the opposition Hayastan and Pativ Unem alliances talk during a parliament session in Yerevan, August 24, 2021. The reports prompted serious concerns from Armenian opposition leaders and other critics of Pashinian. They renewed their allegations that Pashinian is planning to make more territorial concessions to Baku and recognize Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh. Artsvik Minasian, a senior lawmaker from the main opposition Hayastan alliance, said it will try to scuttle such concessions. “Even if a negotiating process is underway, it must be public or at least the main political and publics actors must be involved in it,” Minasian told a news conference. “The authorities cannot carry with their secretive stance.” Another senior Hayastan representative, Ishkhan Saghatelian, announced late last week that the bloc led by former President Robert Kocharian will soon hold a rally in Yerevan to try to prevent a “new capitulation agreement.” Putin already hosted a trilateral meeting with Aliyev and Pashinian in January. The three leaders decided at the time to set up a Russian-Armenian-Azerbaijani commission tasked with working out practical modalities of establishing the transport links. The commission most recently met in the Russian capital on October 20. Ahead of that meeting, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov spoke of “positive” signals coming from Yerevan. Bayramov expressed hope that they will translate into “concrete results” soon. Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL Copyright (c) 2021 Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty, Inc. 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036.