Six political parties and one bloc last weekend officially started campaigning for what is going to be Yerevan’s first mayoral elections in nearly two decades.

Among the political forces running for the capital city’s Assembly are the governing Republican Party of Armenia (RPA, led by incumbent appointed mayor Gagik Beglaryan), pro-establishment Prosperous Armenia and Orinats Yerkir, the opposition Armenian National Congress (ANC) and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation Dashnaktsutyun (ARF) as well as the People’s Party and the Labor-Socialist Party of Armenia.

The only woman candidate that tops a party ticket is Orinats Yerkir’s Heghine Bisharyan.

“Being the only woman among the seven [top] candidates I had the courage to participate in the electoral campaign and struggle for this high post that will represent the city of Yerevan and it is highly important for Yerevan’s future,” Bisharyan said during a meeting with Yerevan residents earlier this week. “In families women solve problems by carefully planning the expenditure of financial means. I promise to be such a mayor: having little financial means at my disposal I will put Yerevan in good order through effective management.”

The political forces launched their campaigns with a variety of promises that are almost identical in each platform – make Yerevan a better, cleaner and greener place to live by improving public facilities in the city, planting trees, asphalting roads, etc.

Gagik Beglaryan, the top candidate on the Republican Party’s slate, said during his meetings that as the new mayor he would do his best to find solutions to Yerevan residents’ problems- from street lighting to different problems of high-rise buildings.

“We do not want to make tall promises, however, we will do everything possible to restore the hope of each of you in the city authorities, in community authorities,” said Beglaryan. “We are going to have a fair approach, equal in all spheres and to everyone.”

ARF started its electoral campaign by planting trees in the Erebuni district of Yerevan. Later the presentation of the election platform took place at Moscow Cinema House promising that the social life of residents would be improved, the green areas would be restored and the budgets of Yerevan municipality and districts would become transparent.

Yet before the launch of the election campaign several political forces defined the Yerevan City Council elections as political. On May 1, at the opposition ANC rally, Armenia’s first president Levon Ter-Petrosyan said that “it is high time to finally realize that there is no non-political issue in this country, since politics is a way of living for the state.”

“The official electoral machine, besides blaming the ANC for politicizing the elections, tries to create another uncomfortable situation for us, using another funny means – reducing a mayor’s role to that of a garbage collector,” said Ter-Petrosyan.

According to him, if a mayor’s only responsibility is collecting garbage, then how to explain the fact that in the huge 60-page Law on Yerevan only one line deals with this issue, whereas the rest refers to politics.

RPA campaign manager Harutyun Pambukyan reiterated in a televised appearance that the Republicans do not politicize elections.

“We are going to elect a City Council and the City Council will choose a mayor. The mayor should deal mainly with city issues, and not foreign policy or economy. As for garbage collection, I assure you that 70 percent of Yerevan residents are concerned about Yerevan’s garbage collection, greenery planting, etc. The newly elected mayor will take care of those issues,” Pambukyan says.

ARF, which quit the government coalition only a few days before the start of the election campaign, says the two extremely different approaches are not acceptable for them and that these extremes are meant to mislead the electorate rather than serve their main objective.

ARF’s Armen Rustamyan says: “It is crystal clear that these elections are politically important, however, we should avoid either underestimating or overestimating it and clearly understand what kind of elections we are involved in.”

According to the senior ARF representative, these elections should have a healing role in the authorities.

Meetings with Yerevan’s residents organized by the Prosperous Armenia Party have been particularly well-attended. Presenting their election platform, the party’s chairman Gagik Tsarukyan said that when developing it they had taken into consideration the suggestions sent by residents of the capital.

“I am a resident of Yerevan, and I am aware of the concerns Yerevan residents have; some of them have not been solved yet. However, I am sure that together we will be able to finally and effectively settle all those problems,” said Harutyun Kushkyan, who heads Prosperous Armenia’s slate.

A total of 439 election precincts in 13 electoral districts in Yerevan will operate on Election Day, May 31.

Norayr Muradkhanyan, head of the Passport and Visa Department of RA Police, says that according to preliminary voter registers, 771,353 people are eligible to go to the polls in Yerevan. Muradkhanyan rejected speculations suggesting that the number of voters in the city has been inflated, saying that from July 1, 2008 to January 1, 2009 the number of eligible voters in Yerevan increased by 4,274, and by 30,490 countrywide.

“This index increased not only in Yerevan, but also in the provinces. According to the more recent data, from January 1, 2009 to April 21, 2009, the number of eligible voters in Yerevan increased by 7,570, and by 19,942 in the whole country,” said Muradkhanyan.