Vahan Hovhannisyan, a member of the ARF bureau, Armen Rustamyan, a representative of the Supreme Body, and Artyush Shahbazyan, the secretary of the faction, presented their list for proportional representation during a press conference today and answered journalists’ questions. According to Vahan Hovhannisyan, “The most successful and competitive list is ours. Our voter has understood that he shouldn’t trust either the freshness of cheese in a mousetrap, or promises and lies that he has been hearing for years, therefore, we have big expectations.” In response to an observation of one of the journalists that the ARF candidates for majoritarian representation were unknown, Vahan Hovhannisyan assured, “Who do you know? You know either self-declared stars, or underworld leaders, or rich people who have gained their tremendous wealth from unknown resources and whom you call oligarchs. Yes, naturally, that type is not represented much, we don’t have such people on our list either for proportional or majoritarian representation.”
According to Vahan Hovhannisyan, the possibility of forming a coalition depends on the composition of the next parliament, one shouldn’t rule out any political remedy, “We don’t see such possibility at the moment, we will see, once the election is over.”
In response to a question of www.aravot.am whether the fact that Lilit Galstyan was in the 20th place and there were other women like Nune Petrosyan and Karine Harutyunyan in front of her didn’t mean that they were unsatisfied with her work, Vahan Hovhannisyan said, “The number on the list doesn’t matter much for becoming an MP. She was in the 21 place on the list in the previous election, therefore, I don’t see much difference. She can pass. All 85 can pass.” We also inquired whether there had been an option of including Davit Lokyan in the first ten, because there had been news spread in the press, Mr. Hovhannisyan said, “We know that many newspapers write that according to the spread news, our source in the ARF… No one of you has a source in the ARF, don’t cherish illusions. You write whatever you want, then you ask with surprise why that wasn’t so. It wasn’t supposed to be so.”
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Let us mention that Karen Shahmuradyan, the owner of Armenia Lada is in the 10th place on the list and Hrayr Karapetyan and Hrant Margaryan are not on it. In regard to Shahmuradyan, the ARF representatives said that he was not a businessman anymore and would be engaged in legislative activities. In response to a question whether they hadn’t included Hrant Margaryan because of his being vulnerable, considering he often had meetings with Serzh Sargsyan, Vahan Hovhannisyan said, “There is no vulnerability in meeting with the president of the Republic of Armenia, no matter who that president is.”
In regard to the motto “Let us believe to change,” Vahan Hovhannisyan said that belief was a moral category, one should be able to earn it, “What we should believe? That he has good intentions, that he is a patriot, we don’t doubt it, we are not enemies, now are we? However, we don’t believe that they can do it. Check out their list for proportional representation, the same names, they have added a few that haven’t passed ‘face control’ yet.” Armen Rustamyan added that there was a saying in regard to belief “Seeing is believing.”
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
