News - Elections for Vagharshapat's City Council have begun.

Today, November 16, 2025, in the enlarged Vagharshapat municipality there are extraordinary elections to the municipal council. At 08:00, all 47 polling stations opened. Voting will continue until 20:00, after which the results will be tallied. Eight political forces are participating: Homeland, Civil Contract, Free Democrats, Mother Armenia national-democratic, Heritage, Republic, Pan-Armenian Front, and the Victory bloc formed by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation and the Forward center-right parties. According to information published by the Ministry of Internal Affairs, 69,866 residents of Vagharshapat have the right to vote. To cover the elections, the Central Election Commission accredited 31 media outlets with 206 journalists. And six local observer organizations will monitor the process, with 233 observers. These elections are extraordinary because in May 2025 the head of the Vagharshapat community, Diana Gasparyan, submitted her resignation from the posts of community head and council member. After that, extraordinary council elections were initiated. Recall that Hetq reported that the family of Vagharshapat’s head Diana Gasparyan started a business building single-family houses in Ejmiatsin. For this purpose, with the help of partners, a municipal land plot was acquired and, without waiting for permits, land and concreting works were carried out. After our publication, a criminal case was initiated. Indictments were brought against Diana Gasparyan, her husband (who is a member of the Vagharshapat municipal council), as well as his father-in-law. These elections unite the Vagharshapat and Khoi communities. Khoi is a multi-settlement community consisting of 17 settlements, formed on December 5, 2021, as a result of the local government elections. On the same day, the Vagharshapat community was formed, consisting of Etchmiatsin city and Voskehhat village. However, after Diana Gasparyan’s resignation, at the government’s initiative, a change was made to the Law on Administrative-Territorial Division, and it was decided to unite the Khoi and Vagharshapat communities this time, forming a Vagharshapat community of 19 settlements.