‘Mother Armenia’ Will Not Participate in the Meeting: Andranik Tevanian Calls for Boycott

The crisis in the Yerevan City Council can only be overcome through new elections, stated Andranik Tevanian, leader of the ‘Mother Armenia’ party.

“The governance system of Yerevan is in crisis. We have a minority government, which raises issues of legitimacy and governance. How did this happen, and what should be done?

1. ‘Mother Armenia’ viewed the Yerevan city council elections as an opportunity for a complete regime change in Armenia. Our minimum goal was to prevent the reestablishment of the ‘Civil Contract’ party in the capital, which was on the verge of happening as a result of the September 17, 2023 elections. However, a consensus was not achieved within the non-governmental segment, against our will. As a result, the CPP + ‘Republic’ minority coalition formed a government in Yerevan with the indirect support of the ‘Public Voice’ faction and elected a CPP mayor.

2. Since September of last year, ‘Mother Armenia’ has been advocating for new elections in Yerevan. If a mayor were not elected, or if council meetings were not held for three consecutive months, new elections should have been called according to legislation. However, due to the behavior of the ‘Public Voice’ faction, both a mayor was elected, and the strategy of boycotting meetings failed to work, allowing local taxes and fees to be increased.

3. According to the results of the last city council elections, the CPP and its sister party received 32 mandates. Together, ‘Mother Armenia’, ‘National Progress’, and ‘Public Voice’ have 33 mandates, but 2 from ‘Public Voice’ are objectively unable to participate in the sessions. This means that the non-governmental segment of the Yerevan city council effectively has 31 mandates, which is fewer than the coalition that formed the government. This, in turn, means we cannot sabotage the anti-people and thieving decisions of the CPP + ‘Republic’ coalition by voting ‘against’, but we can prevent their adoption by boycotting the meetings. In other words, if we are opposed to any decision (for example, the increase in parking fees or transportation costs marked in red), we should not participate in the meeting and vote ‘against’, but rather not attend, thereby not ensuring a quorum, which will prevent the meeting from taking place and the controversial decision from being adopted. This strategy, however, has yet to be successfully implemented, as ‘Public Voice’ has always acted in favor of the authorities, effectively becoming a member of the ruling coalition in Yerevan.

4. The CPP and ‘Republic’ are constantly faced with the issue of ensuring a quorum for city council meetings and are forced to engage in backstage bargaining with ‘Public Voice’ on contentious issues. Now they have initiated the process of depriving 5 members from the ‘Mother Armenia’ and ‘National Progress’ factions—Sona Aghakyan, Gevorg Stepanyan, Narine Hayrapetyan, Zaruhy Postanjyan, and Hayk Marutyan—of their mandates. The justification presented is their absence from more than half of the votes.

Without delving into legal-technical details, we note that not participating in votes and not ensuring a quorum is the only effective tool for anti-government factions and the only means to express dissent. By imposing sanctions on the opposition council members, the ruling coalition attempts to pressure ‘Mother Armenia’ and ‘National Progress’ to abandon the tool of boycott, because every time the backstage trade with ‘Public Voice’ seems to be costing a lot and causing discomfort.

5. The initiative to strip 5 council members of their mandates is illegitimate. The effective tool for nullifying that initiative is to boycott the meeting so that a quorum is not ensured, the meeting does not take place, and the Nikoli-Pashinyan program is not implemented. ‘Mother Armenia’ will not participate in that meeting and calls for a general boycott. However, if the meeting takes place against our will (in the case of the participation of a representative or representatives of ‘Public Voice’), our faction members will enter the meeting room to express their views on the faces of the bribed members of the CPP, ‘Republic’, and ‘Public Voice’. In such a case, ‘Mother Armenia’ will not participate in the voting to strip mandates.

6. It is evident that the opposition councilors are under attack, and they want to strip them of their mandates so they can push through decisions regarding transportation price increases and other subsequent hikes. It is difficult to say what course the extraordinary session of the Yerevan city council scheduled for February 7 will take. Political life has become so distorted and vulgar that everyone is sitting and waiting to see whether a member or members of ‘Public Voice’ will sell out or not. In other words, everyone knows that the Nikols want to engage in ‘cattle theft’ through illegal means.

7. In the current crisis situation, the political solution is new elections for the Yerevan city council. Last September, we proposed to boycott the election sessions for the city mayor and thus facilitate holding new city council elections. However, as a result of a known deal, the Pashinyan government managed to retain the mayoral position and avoided new elections. Now there is an opportunity to prevent transportation price increases and other anti-people decisions through meeting boycotts. The boycott of council meetings will also create an opportunity to call for new elections. If at least 3 months pass without council meetings, the government must call for new elections. We are in favor of new elections. What developments will unfold will become clear on February 7. If the ‘cattle theft’ is successful, then the meeting boycotts will not work. If the ‘cattle theft’ is unsuccessful, then all meetings must be boycotted and new elections called,” he wrote.

It is noted that tomorrow the Yerevan council will discuss the issue of stripping mandates from ‘National Progress’ member and former mayor Hayk Marutyan, and ‘Mother Armenia’ faction members Narine Hayrapetyan, Zaruhy Postanjyan, Sona Aghakyan, and Gevorg Stepanyan.

It should be emphasized that the rationale of the proposal authored by the ‘Civil Contract’ and ‘Republic’ factions states that members of the council did not participate in more than half of the votes in meetings.