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Mr. Prime Minister

We applied to a member of the Yerevan Council of Elders from the Yelk bloc a few days ago to know why the Council of Elders, that is eligible to demand the mayor’s resignation, fails to deal with the issue, putting the burden of “rejecting” on the citizens.

As I understood from the reply, the City Council is waiting for the Yerevan mayor’s one year in office to expire.

Yelk faction MP Alen Simonyan gave up his parliamentary seat on Tuesday to regain his membership in the Council of Elders.

The people are already discussing Simonyan’s possible nomination for the post of mayor.

Let me briefly look back on some past events before touching upon the main issue.

I addressed a letter to Minister of Territorial Administration and Development Davit Lokyan, however the reply featured some citations from the law that no way complied with the question.

Question: “Pursuant to the statutory obligations of the ministry, the ministry must ensure the territorial and proportionate development of the Republic of Armenia. Obviously, the whole attention, whether it is the attention of the government or population, or the number of population, schools, hospitals, universities…are centered in Yerevan. It is again obvious that the development of regions will remain up in the air unless Yerevan somehow turns into a closed city…”

Let me address this question already to You, expecting a clear-cut response.

Moreover, as a continuation of my question, don’t You think that Yerevan does not need a mayor at all?

I am strongly convinced that the enormous capital of a country with small population does not need one leader. And I think You, with your diplomatic thinking, will also accept the demand of the moment – Yerevan does not need a mayor.

It will enable You to turn Yerevan into a city of love and solidarity by distributing its administration among various people.

Anahit Voskanyan, Panorama.am Editor-in-Chief