The town of Echmiadzin will go to the polls to elect its mayor on October 19th. Five candidates are vying for the post - current Deputy Mayor Karen Grigoryan, the son of General Manvel Grigoryan; Hakob Hakobyan, nicknamed “Djout”, a businessman and former National Assembly Deputy; Tamara Tadevosyan, former Staff Director of the Echmiadzin Municipality; YGM (Defenders of the Land Volunteers Organization)  media spokesperson Hakob Hakobyan and Ardak Poghosyan, General Manvel; Grigoryan’s son-in-law.

Karen Grigoryan and businessman Hakob Hakobyan are seen as the leading contenders. The were the only two candidates registered with the District Elections Committee up till the deadline but at the last minute the names of the other three candidates were added to the list due to an article that appeared in the newspaper “Pakagitz”. According to the article’s author election bribes were being distributed on a wide-scale and “...Manvel’s son was bringing in narcotics from Hoktemberyan and in order to curry the votes of certain individuals was threatening to get their kids and families addicted..."

The article was the reason that Artur Simonyan, a candidate for the Municipal Council,  who was named in the article as allegedly using drugs in his campaign headquarters, was taken down to the police station. This incident created an angry uproar with the residents of the village of Zvartnots where Artur resides and they staged a protest march. Even though General Manvel Grigoryan silently digested the charges leveled against his son he has chosen his own battle tactics and added on two names to the list of proposed candidates. (Our sources note that the General too great pains to control himself not to cut -up “Djout” into little pieces because he was convinced that the latter instigated the publishing of the article in question).

The motivation to place the second Hakob Hakobyan on the ballot is clear. By having two candidates with the same name of the ballot will create confusion among voters, especially senior citizens, and “Djout” will, in all likelihood, loose a few hundred votes in the process. During the last Parliamentary elections in 2007 General Seyran Saroyan used the same ploy to defeat his opponent Hakobyan by including another individual named  Hakob Hakobyan, from Yerevan, on the ballot. Today, it is General Grigoryan who is using the same tactic by proposing the candidacy of YGM media spokesman Hakob Hakobyan.

Regarding the General’s son-in-law Ardak Poghosyan, he would be the candidate most likely to win only if the General’s son was forcibly removed from the race. We should add that the regime is pulling out all the stops to have just this scenario succeed.

There’s a different reason underlying the candidacy of the only woman, Tamara Tadevosyan. As opposed to the last two who surfaced as a kind of "surprise jumping out of a cake", this woman’s name was being bandied about early on. It was even being said that she was entering the race at the behest of the authorities. However, when Galust Sahakyan himself declared that the Republican Party with the backing the candidacy of Hakob Hakobyan, Tamara Tadevosyan withdrew. When her name reappeared in the candidates list the rumor being circulated was that “she worked something out with Djout”. The latter has even stated that if elected mayor he would appoint Tamara Tadevosyan as his deputy.
Thus, it boils down to two groups vying for the post of Mayor of Echmiadzin. It goes without saying that the race will be hotly contested and uncompromising. The leadership at the national level has already started to dismiss Manvel Grigoryan’s underlings from leadership positions at state bodies - Director Benik Petrosyan, at the Electrical Grid, and his father Jivan Petrosyan, the Head of the Pension Service, have already handed in their resignations. Even though “Jrmugh” Director Artur Tumanyan betrayed the General who got him the position and went over to the camp of Hrant Grigoryan, his days as Director are also numbered. (Let’s remember that after the events of March 1st the two Grigoryan’s surfaced on opposing sides of the barricades and today, according to reliable sources, this group is working with National Assembly Deputy Arakel Movsisyan for the benefit of “Djout”.)

It appears that the last stronghold of the Grigoryans, father and son, is the Gas Agency with its manpower. The fate of its Director, Sashik Mkrtchyan, will become clear in the near future. There’s only a slim chance that he will return to the post once his vacation is up.

Those removed from office are being replaced by candidates of the authorities, with some being brought in from the outside.

By solidifying the levers in support of “Djout”, the regime is making known its antipathy towards the Grigoryan family. An evaluation of the regime’s painstaking steps shows they will stop at nothing to pull this last support base for the Grigoryan’s from under their feet. The Grigoryan’s are pinning their hopes on the sober levelheadedness of the residents of Echmiadzin and are thus convinced of their victory, despite the campaign aimed against them by the authorities.