Ruling party seeks impeachment of Yerevan mayor
YEREVAN, December 16. /ARKA/. The My Step faction in Yerevan's Council of Elders dominated by the Civil Contract party of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has begun the process of a vote of no confidence in the mayor of the Armenian capital, Hayk Marutyan.
“According to preliminary information, we already have 39 signatures [of council members,] more than the 33 signatures necessary [for a no confidence motion,]” Armen Kotolyan, a member of the faction, told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
“The process has started, and I think that Hayk Marutyan will be dismissed before the end of this month,” he said.
The Yerevan Council of Elders currently consists of three factions: My Step (54 members), Prosperous Armenia (5 members), and Luys (3 members).
Kotolyan declined to give reasons for the dramatic move, saying that My Step will explain it later on.
Marutyan, 45, is a former TV comedian who actively participated in the “velvet revolution” that brought Pashinyan to power in May 2018.
According to Kotolyan, Armenia’s leadership is considering several potential candidates for the post of Yerevan mayor, including Marutyan’s deputy Hayk Sargsyan.
The relationship between Pashinyan and Marutyan took a crack after the 2020 autumn war in Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), when the mayor distanced himself from the political force that supported his elections.
The Haykakan Zhamanak (Armenian Time) daily, a newspaper that had been edited for many years by current Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and now is run by his wife Anna Hakobyan, published a story titled "Generals who 'distracted' Hayk Marutyan from the revolution"
The unsigned story reiterated the rumors that after the 44-day war in Artsakh Marutyan submitted a statement on quitting the ruling Civil Contract party of Pashinyan and has cut ties with the members of the ruling party.
The story claims that Marutyan’s godfather, General Arthur Alexanyan helped him to establish close contacts with another general, the head of the opposition Hayastan alliance in the parliament Seyran Ohanyan.
The story in the Haykakan Zhamanak claims also that after the end of the war, Hayk Marutyan met with Robert Kocharyan (the second president of Armenia and now head of the opposition Hayastan alliance) through Seyran Ohanyan.
‘Remarkably, after this meeting, all mass media outlets, controlled by Robert Kocharyan, took a very loyal stance on Marutyan", the story says. 0-
