Today Gayane Arustamyan, a representative of the Armenian National Congress (ANC), made an intriguing revelation about what deal she had been offered before the election and what had come out when she had refused to go for that deal. It turns out that regardless of the joint staff, during the election, the PAP worked against the representative of the ANC and cooperated with the Heritage Party. At least, one could conclude that from Gayane Arustamyan’s statement. During a conversation with www.aravot.am, Gayane Arustamyan told that she had received information from the PAP during the pre-election campaign that the PAP electorate was ready to vote for her, “I had very clear, 100% information that since, for example, in my electoral district the PAP had no candidate and since there was a joint staff and an agreement to jointly fight against election fraud, first we got information that those who were going to vote for the PAP would vote for the candidate of the ANC through majoritarian representation, i.e. me. It was not an internal agreement, it was information gotten at the level of headquarters, at the level of the neighborhood. I tried to check it. And people from the PAP – ordinary members, some officials – came to my headquarters and said that they would vote for me. I am not inclined to believe such promises, I calmly waited for further developments. When the election was approaching, I will not go into detail, but they offered me a deal. I refused that deal, I refused all deals. Then news came by the same method that if I refused, I didn’t enter politics in accordance with their rules of the game, i.e. I adhered to my original principles, they would change their attitude toward me and I should go and find votes as many as I could on my own. As a result, it was visible that my votes were less than those of Styopa Safaryan, i.e. the votes that were promised me….” In response to our observation whether she meant that Styopa Safaryan had accepted the deal she had refused, she said, “Well, it is the logical conclusion.”
Gayane Arustamyan made this revelation, when we asked her to comment on the statement made during a press conference at Hayatsk Club that “the PAP electorate has moved to the Heritage Party.” In response to our question why Styopa Safaryan had argued intensely in the joint staff not to take any joint steps with the PAP, if he had gone for a deal with the PAP, she responded, “I say those are games. Those games are disgusting. I assess this also as politics at the local level, also as stagnant and banal, when one cannot distinguish whether yes is yes and no is no.”
Gayane Arustamyan predicted that in no. 1 electoral district of Avan, where besides Styopa Safaryan, Ruben Hayrapetyan was also nominated, she would win 6000 votes, “Because all those promises made to me that they would vote for me, I thought they would convince one half and they would bribe the other half, even if it was divided into two, it was not that bad, after all, because my votes were 10-12 thousand, I thought it would be good, if it was divided into two. If the numbers had not been falsified there, if they hadn’t bribed there, my chances would have been really big.”
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
