An incident has just taken place in Theater Square of Gyumri between local police officers and ARF representatives handing out leaflets. The issue is that ARF members put up a tent in front of the theater on Saturday, urging passersby to defend their votes, don’t sell them and avoid election bribe. However, police officers of Gyumri didn’t like it – they made the ARF members clean the territory early this morning, remove the tent and invited the one responsible for putting up the tent to the Gyumri police for a talk. Gevorg Alekyan, a representative of the ARF committee in the region of Shirak, told www.aravot.am about it. In response to a question why the ARF tent bothered the police officers, whether law-enforcers were for election bribe, Mr. Alekyan said, “I asked police officers the same question, I said they urged people on all TV channels of the Republic of Armenia to guarantee free, fair election, to avoid election bribe, now we are carrying out the same action, but in the manner of handing out leaflets. What is the problem? Police officers responded they had an order from above not to allow. I said I would not remove the tent, let them come here. Thank God, there was no encounter, at the end of the day, we are civilized people, but they, nonetheless, wanted to prevent, made calls, have been watching us since the morning, I am convinced that they will return.”
According to our interlocutor, one cannot call a “tent” what they put up, it was rather an umbrella, in order that sun doesn’t bother those standing under the umbrella and from where they can give booklets and leaflets to passersby, they also sign contracts with them. According to Gevorg Alekyan, they have found out that they don’t need permission from anyone – either the mayor, or the police – to put up such an umbrella, according to the law.
In response to our question whether there were people interested in their action, the ARF official assured that they had already signed contracts with 60 people and handed out 500-600 leaflets.
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By the way, this action has been organized at the initiative of the ARF, however, the Vote Is Power NGO has been carrying it out. It has been carried out in different regions of Armenia. “The elite that are not determined, are sick of this situation, we try to direct them to polling stations. Many people say, ‘We will not go to vote, anyway, it doesn’t matter whether we vote or not, who is needed, who hands out bribe, will pass, anyway, or another from this clan will pass.’ We try to keep people away from all that,” the ARF member explains their objective in this manner. In response to our surprise whether there were still people who would vote without reward in hungry Gyumri, our interlocutor assured that there was an electorate that didn’t accept election bribe and was unfortunately sick of everything not only in Gyumri, but all over Armenia.
Nune AREVSHATYAN
