Elections for the city council will be held in the Armavir Marz village of Dasht on May 9. Six candidates, of whom four are serving members, are vying for the five open spots. It can be generally said that such elections aren’t a big deal in Armenia’s rural communities, as opposed to the cities. Sometimes, there aren’t even people willing to serve. Since the council members are not paid and no one wants to risk offending their friends and neighbors, such jobs often go unfilled. Dasht Mayor Hrant Petrosyan told Hetq that there is no real election campaign for the council slots. No one wants the headache. The mayor says that it will take some time before residents realize the important role that can be played by local councils if people take an interest and get informed. "Who has the time to sit in an office from morning till night, especially when you don’t get paid? It would be different if the municipality had the budget to pay people. Then you’d see an interest. Right now, we just can’t afford salaries. The director of the village’s cultural center only gets 30,000 AMD a month," complained the mayor. We asked Mayor Petrosyan if there were any "opposition" candidates in the race. "First, people must understand what the concept means. Today, anyone is free to express any opinion they have. In this sense, each of us is opposed to someone else," he said, adding that this doesn’t prevent the Dasht Council from effectively operating.