Tuesday, April 7 2020 15:01

ArmInfo.Masis Mayilyan's refusal to participate in the second round of the presidential election in Artsakh goes beyond standard scenarios. Political strategist Vigen  Hakobyan expressed a similar opinion to ArmInfo.

As a result of the presidential elections held in Artsakh on March  31, not one of the candidates won 50% of the vote. The second round  of voting is planned for Arayik Harutyunyan (with the most votes in  the first round,  49.6% ) and Masis Mayilyan (26.7% ). However, on  April 5, Masis Mayilyan called on the Artsakh people to boycott the  second round, making it impossible to carry out the threat of the  spread of the coronavirus.

"Taking into account the results of the first round and already  noticeable serious disagreements in the tandem of Masis Mayilian -  Samvel Babayan, the outcome of the second round was  any case  predetermined. I do not exclude the situation in which Mayilyan could  refuse the second round with the filing of Yerevan. Moreover, since  according to available information, both he and Harutyunyan left for  Yerevan after the election, "Hakobyan noted.

The political strategist explains Harutyunyan's success in the first  round by two years of his work in this direction, accompanied by a  rejection of the image of a government official and, accordingly,  from an official point of view on a number of issues. In this light,  he highlighted certain problems observed in the same period between  Stepanakert and Yerevan and, of course, his financial and  administrative resources, the latter first of all, consisted of the  heads of rural and urban communities, who are members of  Harutyunyan's "Free Homeland" party.

Among the features of the first round, the political strategist  singled out Yerevan's rather loyal attitude towards Harutyunyan. The  latter, in turn, stated that he might not agree with the Armenian  authorities on one single issue - Artsakh's issue. According to the  political strategist, Harutyunyan thus hinted that his position as  President of Artsakh in resolving the conflict with Azerbaijan could  be tougher than the position of Armenia.

"Thus, Harutyunyan makes it clear about the possibility of the  distribution of roles between Yerevan and Stepanakert in the  negotiations on the Artsakh issue. Such tactics have been repeatedly  used in the negotiations, both as a result of coordination and as a  unilateral initiative of the Artsakh authorities. It is known that  the position of Yerevan and Stepanakert did not always coincide.   These relations were especially difficult during the presidency of  Levon Ter-Petrosyan," Hakobyan concluded.  

Parliamentary elections are over in Artsakh and five political forces  have won seats in the National Assembly of Nagorno-Karabakh. These  are: the political alliance representing the Free Fatherland and  Christian-Democratic parties received  40.4% of ballots, the United  Fatherland party - 23,63% of ballots, the Justice party of Artsakh -  7.9%, the ARF-D - 6.4% and the Democratic Party of Artsakh - 5.81%.