Armenia`s ruling forces continues attempts to usurp power in country 

ArmInfo.  The current government in Armenia, as expected, will not miss the opportunity to carry out dirty maneuvers in Gyumri and will make many attempts to usurp power in the second largest city of Armenia. Lawyer Arsen Babayan wrote about this on his Facebook page, touching upon Karen Badalyan's decision to leave the "Our City" bloc and become an independent  member of the Council of Elders of Gyumri.

"Thus, the ruling force is trying to "steal" the mandate of the "Our  City" bloc, headed by Martun Grigoryan, without caring at all about  the will of the voters," Babayan noted.

And lawyer Sos Hakobyan noted in a conversation with journalists that  after the elections to the Council of Elders in Gyumri, the most  pessimistic forecasts came true: the government has already found  ways to undermine the election results. "On April 21, one of the  members of the Our City bloc, Karen Badalyan, filed a statement that  due to a transfer to another job, he could not continue his  activities as a member of the Council of Elders. In accordance with  the law, the head of the Council of Elders drew up a protocol on the  termination of his powers on April 22. This protocol was then sent to  the district election commission, which simply recorded this  termination of powers," Hakobyan explained.

At the same time, the lawyer drew attention to the fact that all the  established deadlines for confirming this statement had been  exhausted. "Meanwhile, two days after his statement, Badalyan, for  unclear reasons, again filed a statement asking to cancel the  previous decision and expressed a desire to continue to remain in his  post, but at the same time to leave the "Our City" bloc," the lawyer  added.

In this regard, Hakobyan expressed the conviction that there was  interference here, with an attempt to influence Badalyan's decision,  adding that this could even be called psychological violence. "It  does not happen that a person on April 21 refuses his mandate, gives  reasons and literally two days later notes that he has changed his  mind, but at the same time declares that from now on he will become  an independent member of the Council of Elders. However, we know that  there are no independent deputies or members of the Council of  Elders," Hakobyan noted.

According to him, such supposedly independent deputies or members of  the Council of Elders in the future can only serve one thing - the  benefit of the authorities. In this vein, Hakobyan expressed his  conviction that this interference has one goal - to change the  political picture in Gyumri.

"We are here to fight against this, and also to show everyone how a  supposedly independent body works, and to record all violations,  trying to prevent them if possible," the lawyer said.

He also added that he does not rule out the possibility of arresting  or detaining other members of the Council of Elders or intimidating  them with criminal cases in order to resolve the issue of the  difference in mandates. "Thus, the ruling force will try to steal  power, since it was unable to obtain it through the people's vote,"  the lawyer concluded.

On March 30 of this year, early elections to the Council of Elders of  Gyumri were held. The ruling Civil Contract party received the  largest number of votes (35.47% of the votes), but this percentage  was not enough for the ruling force's candidate Sarik Minasyan to  head the city. The united opposition decided to nominate a single  candidate in the person of the Communist Party representative Vardan  Ghukasyan, who received 18.41%. Thus, opposition candidate Vardan  Ghukasyan, who headed the Communist Party list and received the  largest number of votes among the opposition, was re-elected mayor of  Gyumri.