Local elections in Armavir Marz are scheduled for September 9. Looking at the pool of candidates, it’s a safe bet that the current crop of community leaders will be easily re-elected.

In the town of Etchmiadzin, there are two candidates – current Mayor Karen Grigoryan, the son of MP Manvel Grigoryan, and Armineh Hovhannisyan, better known to the public as the chief of staff for Gortzik Ltd.

We can confidently predict that Grigoryan will be returned to office given that Hovhannisyan’s candidacy is merely for show and a means to satisfy the electoral code.

The same can’t be said for the town of Metzamor where there are four candidates running for the job of mayor – current Mayor Robert Grigoryan; independent Sargis Haroutyuyan, who runs the Mouslaer branch office of the Armavir electric utility; former Metzamor mayor Ashot Grigoryan, brother of MP Manvel Grigoryan, and Asya Arakelyan, a Russian language specialist with the Armavir branch of the National Educational Institute.

The contest in Metzamor will focus on Robert Grigoryan and Ashot Grigoryan. In the last election, Ashot wasn’t backed by his brother Manvel and lost out to Robert.

It appears that Ashot won’t be backed by his brother Manvel this time as well.

Regarding elections in the villages, most of the nominated candidates are the current mayors and it doesn’t look like much of a contest.

To satisfy the electoral code, secondary candidates, again for show, have been picked to run alongside the favourites. These candidates are mostly employees from the village municipal staff or are either relatives of the top candidates themselves.