Pashinian pledged to “throw out” Mayor Vartan Ghukasian from “the political and public arena” during his government’s question-and-answer session in the Armenian parliament on Wednesday. He responded to Ghukasian’s latest calls for the government to not only repair but also deepen its relations Russia, saying that they are directed at Armenia’s “sovereignty.”
Ghukasian was quick to hit back at Pashinian and defend his views, saying that closer ties with Russia would only strengthen Armenia’s independence. He also insisted that he is not afraid of the crackdown signaled by the premier.
Ghukasian’s political faction represented in Gyumri’s municipal council issued a statement on Friday that accused Pashinian of ordering law-enforcement authorities to launch a “new wave of repression against the mayor” of Armenia’s second largest city.
“Leave Gyumri alone, do your job and accept reality,” said the faction nominally representing the local branch of the Armenian Communist Party.
Karen Srukhanian, a Gyumri-based pro-government parliamentarian, claimed, meanwhile, that Ghukasian will be ousted by local residents, rather than law-enforcement bodies. But he declined to say when and how this will be done.
“The people of Gyumri are going to throw out, so to speak, the community leader who questions the sovereignty of the Republic of Armenia,” Sarukhanian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
The city council appointed Ghukasian as mayor after four opposition groups collectively defeated Pashinian’s party in the last municipal election held on March 30. Pashinian questioned the legitimacy of the election results on Wednesday, alleging that the opposition bought votes. He offered no proof of the allegation.
A session of the municipal council of Gyumri, June 20, 2025.
“The Armenian prime minister must realize that he is the leader of a force rejected and defeated by the people of Gyumri in the local government elections,” countered Ghukasian’s faction. “The election results were not and could not be disputed by anyone, including any state body.”
The 64-year-old mayor, who had also governed the city from 1999 to 2012, is already facing a number of criminal charges. None of those accusations, rejected by him as politically motivated, stems from vote buying alleged by Pashinian.
The March election took place as a result of last fall’s mysterious resignations of Gyumri’s previous mayor, Vardges Samsonian, and city council members representing a local political bloc led by businessman Samvel Balasanian. The resignations followed criminal charges brought against Balasanian. The latter has rejected the “trumped-up” charges.
Pashinian’s party has also been accused of resorting to politically motivated criminal cases and foul play to reverse its defeats in local polls held in other major urban communities, including Armenia’s third largest city of Vanadzor. The leader of a local opposition bloc, Mamikon Aslanian, was arrested in December 2021 as he was poised to again become Vanadzor mayor. Aslanian spent two and a half years in prison before being sentenced in January this year to four and a half years’ imprisonment on corruption charges denied by him.
In July 2023, two defections allowed the ruling party to unseat the opposition head of a local community near Gyumri encompassing the town of Akhurian and surrounding villages. Sarukhanian did not deny that the party will also try to engineer such defections from the Gyumri council.
