We are not nominating a candidate because even if that candidate will succeed, there will be a fight again as to who will be the mayor of Yerevan.

Galust Sahakyan, a member of the National Assembly (NA) faction of the former ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA), on Tuesday told the aforementioned to reporters in parliament. He noted this in connection with the Yerevan Council of Elders’ election to be conducted on September 23. 

When asked whom the RPA sees as the next mayor of Yerevan, Sahakyan responded: “I will not say that.”

But he expressed a conviction that the RPA had given mayors who worked very well.

“The [ruling] power [in Armenia] has changed; they want to have the [Yerevan] municipality as well,” Galust Sahakyan concluded. “Naturally, I find that they can have [it].”

NA vice speaker and RPA spokesperson and Eduard Sharmazanov also commented on this matter.

“Our not running in the Yerevan Council of Elders’ elections is due to several circumstances,” he said. “First and foremost, due to [the fact] that it’s a post-power-change situation in Armenia today, the main ‘theater stage’ is the NA, and there are more important external and internal challenges for Armenia than the LSG [local self-government] elections.”