Paper ballot boxes, minor clashes, and another assault… Yes, it’s election time in Yerevan

No sooner does the ruling Republican Party of Armenia inform journalists that there is no mutual hatred or enmity between political forces contesting the crucial municipal election to determine Yerevan’s mayor on 31 May comes news of some minor clashes between opposition supporters and the police. Oh, and did I mention an albeit aborted violent assault on a television journalist?

No? Well, first things first. To begin with, two brief but potentially volatile incidents have occured at rallies held by the extra-parliamentary opposition Armenian National Congress (ANC) led by the country’s first president, Levon Ter-Petrossian. Thankfully the first clash didn’t result in anything more than shoving, but it at least gave me an opportunity to test live streaming from mobile phone in case future incidents escalate into something much worse.

Meanwhile, after a local pollster announced the findings of an arguably less than scientific survey indicating that Prosperous Armenia, a member of the coalition government, could barely count on even 20 percent of votes in the Yerevan election, a TV journalist on whose program the findings were announced was assaulted outside his apartment building early this morning.

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