Former Gyumri Mayor Vardan Ghukasyan was reelected to the post today after a thirteen-year hiatus.

The Gyumri Community Council, by a vote of 18-0, gave the nod to Ghukasyan who ran on the Communist Party ticket.

Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan’s Civil Contract faction boycotted the vote that saw the opposition forces backing Ghukasyan.

On March 30, residents of Armenia’s second largest city went to the polls to elect a new mayor but none of the political forces competing in the Gyumri council snap elections managed to form a majority.

The Civil Contract party won 36.8 percent of the vote, falling short of an absolute majority in the council. Vardan Ghukasyan came in second with 20.7 percent. Coming in third was the Our City bloc of Martun Grigorian, an opposition Armenian parliament MP, which garnered 15.9 percent. Two other opposition groups led by TV producer Ruben Mkhitarian and businessman Karen Simonian will also be represented in the new city council, having polled 7.9 percent and 6.2 percent respectively. 

Ghukasyan, in 2022, was charged with illegally expropriating plots of land, some state-owned, while mayor between 1999 and 2012.