[6][7] On 25 April 2021, Pashinyan announced his formal resignation, prompting the dissolution of the National Assembly and the call for snap elections on 20 June of that year.
He has served as de facto acting mayor since Hracha Sargsyan's resignation in March 2023 due to low approval ratings, and has thus been in the spotlight as the primary implementer of reforms in the city and had the chance to garner support among voters.
[citation needed] The Electoral Code had required a special session of city council be called within one month to fill the vacancy.
Since that date, city council has continued to meet for regular sessions but never again placed the item of electing a new mayor on the agenda.
After he left office, he returned to comedy, performing a stand-up routine titled "The Mayor" about his experience in power and his problems with the ruling team.
The Armenian Revolutionary Federation announced it would not field a separate list of candidates and would endorse parties opposing Civil Contract.
[13] Mane Tandilyan, the former Armenian Minister of Labor and Social Affairs and a candidate of the Country of Living party, stated the election is important as it is the first step to achieve regime change in Armenia.
[19] Thousands of people marched through Yerevan in the Civil Contract's final campaign rally led by Avinyan, as well as Pashinyan and members of his government and political team.
[20] Civil Contract in response denied reports that it is forced public sector employees to attend election campaign.
Avinyan specifically dismissed a video suggesting that entire staffs of schools, kindergartens, and local government bodies participated in one such rally that was held in the city's Nor Nork district.
'As a person who has professional knowledge of electoral processes, I can say that free and democratic elections have a low level of participation all over the world', he said.
[23] The Central Election Commission (CEC) reported that 28.43 percent of Yerevan's 824,250 eligible voters cast ballots, the lowest figure ever recorded in the city.
Some senior members of the opposition blocs portrayed the low turnout and the ruling party's worse-than-expected performance as a massive setback for Pashinyan.
Hanrapetutyun, a former coalition partner of Civil Contract founded by Aram Sargsyan, and led by Artak Zeynalyan, received 11% and eight seats.
He also speculated that Hanrapetutyun whose mayoral candidate Zeynalyan served as Minister of Justice in 2018–2019 for Nikol Pashinyan, would most likely side with Civil Contract.
[22] Tevanyan said the outcome of the Yerevan City Council elections confirmed that Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's Civil Contract party "does not enjoy public trust.
"[26] Pashinyan and Tigran Avinian did not personally comment on the election outcome, reinforcing a widely held belief that it was a serious setback which could have repercussions for the prime minister's political future.
It stated the elections had reduced the pre-revolution forces into electoral irrelevance, as the post-revolution factions developed a new course of politics in Armenia.
It further added the political sophistication of Armenian society when it comes to electoral preferences, but it also allows for a more nuanced understanding of Armenia's democratic trajectory and depolarization.
It concluded, the elections displayed a robust growth in pluralism, while it also introduced the concerns of low turnout and the specter that is haunting most democratic systems, voter apathy.
[29] On 19 September 2023, two days after the Yerevan City Council elections, Azerbaijani forces launched another attack on the self-declared breakaway state of Artsakh.
[30] The attacks occurred in the midst of an escalating crisis caused by Azerbaijan blockading the Republic of Artsakh, which has resulted in significant scarcities of essential supplies such as food, medicine, and other goods in the affected region.