With 18 votes in favor Vardan Ghukasyan has been elected Mayor of Gyumri. He was nominated by the Communist Party faction. He will be inaugurated on April 19.
Only 18 members of the 32-seat City Council were present at the sitting. The three other factions had not nominated candidates.
The Civil Contract faction skipped the inaugural sitting of the Council. Before the vote, Sarik Minasyan, a candidate from this faction, said in a Facebook post that “Gyumri’s governance is doomed to failure in the current situation, a crisis is inevitable.”
He said he remains loyal to every vote cast for him and stated that he called on “members of the council of elders concerned about the future of Gyumri” to “vote with their conscience.”
“Gyumri should not become a city with a vague future, this does not meet the interests of Gyumri residents,” Sarik Minasyan wrote.
