Despite snowy streets and black ice residents of Hrazdan rushed to polling stations on Sunday to perform their civic duties. The citizens, who were from two different armies, believe that with their mayoral elections a new phase of political developments will launch throughout Armenia.

In the mayoral vote, which many described as a test of RPA authority for the May parliamentary elections, acting mayor republican Aram Danielyan, won the elections, getting 1,573 votes more than Sasun Mikayelyan, a former Hrazdan mayor and lawmaker now affiliated with the opposition Armenian National Congress (ANC). (Danielyan received 13,079 votes, and Mikayelyan – 11,506 votes)

Mikayelyan and his supporters claimed that throughout the day (February 12) violations took place in the process in favor of the pro-government candidate. Election bribes were distributed, they claimed, however incumbent mayor Danielyan’s camp either denied any wrongdoing, or leveled accusations of certain violations against Mikayelyan’s supporters.

Video materials emerged on YouTube and later on Facebook on late Sunday about election bribes and caused heated discussions.

On one of the video materials one of Mikayelyan proxies, Gurgen Yeghiazaryan, talks to a woman who came to a polling station to cast a ballot, but asked for cash, 5,000 drams (about $13), to vote in favor of the incumbent mayor (as she reported all residents of her apartment building, except for her, were given the sum).

Political analyst Yervand Bozoyan considers the Hrazdan elections to be a litmus test ahead of the upcoming Parliamentary elections in May.

“The elections showed that the opposition did not get prepared [for the elections] properly, whereas the authorities used all their administrative and financial resources. The opposition must realize what a struggle they will face during the upcoming Parliamentary elections” Bozoyan says.

Sasun Mikayelyan – the opposition candidate who lost -- says his camp does not agree with the preliminary results of the elections however they will not appeal for the recount of the votes because it is meaningless.

Tigran Mukuchyan, Chairman of the Central Election Commission, said that the recent elections in Hrazdan were “a step ahead of the previous elections”.

The opposition candidate’s proxies claimed that at some polling stations the sealing stamps were not new as required by law, but had been used “not so long ago” (possibly for stamping ballot-paper envelops). Mukuchyan says that the sealing stamps, before being taken to polling stations, were tested with the help of ink in factories, because glycerin in the ink dries over time.

“Nonetheless, the ballots are not stamped, only the ballot-paper envelops are stamped, and if even one stamped ballot were revealed then the question would be appropriate. The headlines of the video materials posted on websites on election bribes were more vivid than the facts [in them] themselves. However, it is quite a different question whether or not bribes were given and taken,” Mukuchyan says.

Bozoyan says that bribes have appeared in the primary plan regardless which political force distributes it.

“Now we already do not have citizens, we have people who sell their votes at 5,000 drams ($13). And if the situation continues, then our national security will be threatened in the future, and it will become too meaningless to talk about political processes in this case,” Bozoyan concludes.