Stepanavan: Armen Grigoryan elected mayor a day after Arsen Gevorgyan died in custody
- Published
- Place
- Stepanavan, Lori
- Event date
- Past event —
Summary
Stepanavan’s new municipal council, in the Lori region, elected Armen Grigoryan mayor on Wednesday 11 November, with all 14 councillors present voting in favour. The four Strong Armenia councillors stayed away. Their list leader, 46-year-old Arsen Gevorgyan, died the day before in Nubarashen prison, where he had been held in pre-trial detention since 21 October. The session opened with a minute of silence. The new mayor, whose Gortsarar party came first in the 25 October vote, offered his condolences to the family. Criminal proceedings have been opened into the circumstances of the death and a forensic examination ordered. Strong Armenia, which blames the authorities, protested the same day outside the European Union office in Yerevan.
The session lasted little longer than the vote. Fourteen hands raised, no votes against. Armen Grigoryan said he would have preferred the meeting not to take place that day, but that it had been convened by law.
Strong Armenia’s four seats remained empty. The party has taken up its mandates, its representatives said, but its councillors did not attend because of their candidate’s death.
A majority built after the vote
In the 25 October local elections, Stepanavan was the only one of the 19 communities where Civil Contract, the prime minister’s party, did not come first. Victory went to Gortsarar, the list led by Armen Grigoryan, without an absolute majority. Under the preliminary allocation, it won nine seats, against eight for Civil Contract and four for Strong Armenia.
Lori governor Aren Mkrtchyan had announced that Civil Contract would back Armen Grigoryan’s candidacy and that the two forces would sit as a joint bloc. The mayor’s career explains the deal: appointed acting mayor in 2020, he was elected in 2021 on the Civil Contract list, before breaking with the party and running this year under the Gortsarar banner.
A criminal inquiry and questions over prison healthcare
The Investigative Committee has opened criminal proceedings and ordered a forensic examination, without saying under which article of the Criminal Code. According to Justice Minister Srbuhi Galyan, the detainee complained of feeling unwell early on the morning of 10 November; a paramedic examined him at around 7:55, an ambulance was called, and cardiac arrest was then recorded. He had not reported any health problems during his detention, she added.
“Unfortunately, such cases happen all over the world,” the minister said, citing 20 deaths in prison last year and four since the start of this year. She offered her condolences and rejected any suggestion of political persecution. Strong Armenia MP Hasmik Yengoyan says, on the contrary, that conditions at Nubarashen are “inhumane” and that its medical centre has no doctor, only a paramedic.
Strong Armenia turns to the European Union
On Wednesday, the party held a protest outside the EU office in Yerevan under the slogan “Justice for Arsen Gevorgyan”. “We came here because we believe the current silence is unjustified,” said MP Arega Hovsepyan, who is calling on the Union to speak out.
Arsen Gevorgyan was accused of group vote-buying, which he denied. No verdict had been handed down.
Analysis
In Stepanavan, institutional life has resumed, but in a heavy atmosphere. The government gains an allied mayor in the only community that had slipped from its grasp, thanks to a deal struck after the vote. The opposition now has a symbol: a candidate who died in pre-trial detention without ever being tried. The inquiry and the forensic examination will be decisive. They will show whether the care he received was adequate, and they will weigh on a broader debate: the use of pre-trial detention before elections, a few months before the parliamentary vote and the debate on the new Constitution.
Possible consequences
The findings of the forensic examination are not yet known. Strong Armenia’s councillors have not said whether they will attend the council’s next sessions.
