This year residents of Yerevan notice with surprise that during the pre-election period the city becomes cleaner and ‘greener’ day by day. Many believe the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) is thus trying to raise its rating and the rating of its top candidate on the ticket, who is the incumbent mayor, ahead of the May 31 municipal assembly elections. Some opposition media speculate that even though the current greenery planting and city infrastructure improvement works are being carried out at the expense of budget resources, they still have pre-election purposes.

Since April 1, Yerevan’s municipality has being involved in large-scale tree-planting and yard cleaning operations in different communities of the city. Streets are being asphalted, new electricity posts are being installed and old ones are being renovated, street lights are being installed, and water irrigation systems are being restored or constructed in yards.

According to the data provided by the Yerevan Municipality, in all the communities of Yerevan a total of 4,100 trees have been pruned and rejuvenated. Suren Maksapetyan, deputy head of the Environment Protection Department of the Municipality, says that 15,000 new trees have been planted during the spring tree-planting campaign and flower stands with flower seedlings were hung on nine bridges with the aid of special hooks. And the liming of trees along the streets in the city center had been completed by May 20.

Frunz Basentsyan, head of the Construction and Improvement Department of the Municipality, says all yards and secondary roads leading to them have been asphalted in all city communities since April. In total, an area of around 500,000 square meters has already been asphalted, he adds.

“Upon Mayor Gagik Beglaryan’s instruction, asphalting is done according to the necessity, that is to say, in those sections where there is a need for asphalting,” Basentsyan says.

Yerevan’s neighborhoods carry out extensive garbage removal and sanitary cleaning works in the streets and yards. Besides, 4,354 new electricity posts have been installed in the yards and in the secondary streets leading to the yards; 416 old posts have been restored and 3,839 street lamps have been installed.

According to Basentsyan, it is yet impossible to calculate the exact amount of money spent on city improvement measures because “the works are still in progress and the final figures will be known in 20 days.”

PR specialist Karen Kocharyan recently spoke about an increased rating of the RPA in the pre-election period and connected it with the party’s “non-standard campaign”, i.e. its ability to organize its activities correctly with an effective combination of administrative, human and financial resources.

Politician Ruben Mehrabyan thinks that city improvement activities had been designed to have an influence on the electorate. But he adds that nowadays such actions no longer have any significant impact on voter moods.

“The improvement works are the direct responsibility of the municipality, and these activities are funded from the municipality budget, and there is no need to serve it as a favor for Yerevan residents,” Mehrabyan says.

Publicist Hrant Ter-Abrahamyan, who is known for his in-depth political analyses, also believes that it will have little influence on voters.

“Street lamps are installed in my mother’s yard, too, and maybe the last time that yard had lighting was during the Brezhnev era. But I believe that it will have little influence on people’s opinions,” he says.

Ter-Abrahamyan thinks the RPA electorate will give their votes to the ruling party not for garbage removal or improvement works, but in exchange for an election bribe.

Spokesman for the opposition Armenian National Congress Arman Musinyan says the works carried out by the municipality may have some influence on citizens’ political orientation. But he also believes there will be very few such citizens.

“A majority of residents in Yerevan have the level of consciousness to understand that the large-scale city improvement works are simply a bait: voters are well aware of this nature of the authorities,” Musinyan says.

RPA spokesman Eduard Sharmazanov, meanwhile, thinks that connecting the improvements of the city with the party’s election campaign is totally baseless.

“Asphalting and planting greenery are done every year in this period. The City Hall couldn’t postpone them until the 1st of June. The city would be paralyzed, citizens would complain. Simply in this case the opposition, feeling they have no chance of winning, becomes nervous. We are used to it, in all countries the opposition criticizes the government,” Sharmazanov told ArmeniaNow.