Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan expressed his happiness towards the fact that the mayoral candidate of the “Luys” alliance, Artak Zeynalyan, and other forces participating in the Yerevan City Council elections congratulated the “My Step” candidate Hayk Marutyan on being elected mayor during a Facebook livestream from New York.
Nikol Pashinyan congratulated Prosperous Armenia and the “Luys” alliance, because their representatives will also be a part of the Yerevan City Council.
Nikol Pashinyan announced, “This is a new political culture and signs of a new reality, which are very important. What’s most important is that we saw through these elections that the people’s voice is decisive and we can decide through your voice who the government is, who the opposition is, and who can be on the city council.”
The prime minister assured that this reality is not going to change.
Regarding the results of the Yerevan City Council elections, the prime minister said, “The results of the elections showed that people trust the government very much. We don’t have any need to rig elections or to use administrative resources. Many people say that this is all because the government’s rating is very high right now. If the rating was low, then the authorities wouldn’t be in power. Let’s forget that anyone in Armenia is stuffing so as to take the power away from the people. The power has forever returned to the people, not to me, to “Civil Contract,” to the “My Step” alliance, but to the people.”
Regarding people’s worries that there was low participation in the elections, Nikol Pashinyan said, “That’s laughable, to say the least. Fewer people participated in the prior city council elections when people were being forced into buses. Our election lists don’t show the real facts since many of our compatriots who left Armenia 20-25 years ago continue to be presented on the lists. Election bribes were handed out even when they didn’t take into consideration that extremely old people were said to have voted. Of course, many older people decided not to go to the polling stations this time. Therefore, it’s impossible to doubt the percentage of participation and the mandate they gave.”
Nikol Pashinyan said that the citizens gave him the order to begin negotiations to hold parliamentary elections. “Yes, recent political events have shown that we need to hold parliamentary elections quickly. Being indecisive forbids us from having new people invest in our economy. These elections have shown the parliament that is working today doesn’t have a mandate since the number of votes they received isn’t enough for them to continue working.”
Tatev Harutyunyan
