The issue of announcing a joint candidate for the presidential election is being discussed in the opposition camp at the moment. In that regard, Ruben Hakobyan, the leader of the Heritage Party parliamentary group, put forward his approach to having a joint candidate during a conversation with Aravot, “If the opposition announces a joint candidate, certainly, it will be much more beneficial. This is my general approach, but taking into account also what happens in the opposition camp today, what happened during and after the National Assembly election, in particular, I don’t think it is probable that the whole opposition will rally around one joint candidate. Taking into consideration political realities, at the moment, the opposition has to take on a task of keeping the whole opposition electorate. This is perhaps the most important issue at the moment. If it is necessary to have a few candidates to keep the opposition electorate, one should take that step, because it is not a secret that under these circumstances, in case of an artificial union, it may turn out that 1+1 doesn’t equal two and it is even less than 1. On the contrary, the opposition, I think, has to take into account the realities of the opposition camp and take on a task of not having a joint candidate, but rather keeping opposition electorate in the opposition camp. Otherwise, it may be like it was during the National Assembly election, when a certain percent of the opposition electorate became pro-government with the support of the opposition itself. If the opposition manages to keep its electorate in its camp during the presidential election, it may lead to interesting developments afterwards.”
In response to our question whether today we had a general character, a really winning candidate whom we could name, despite inner-party ambitions, a man who could seriously compete with the pro-government candidate, Mr. Hakobyan said, “I wouldn’t put it that way. The reality is that almost everyone talks about the joint candidate with nice definitions, but everyone means his own candidate whose name is not made public. We state that the Heritage Party offers Raffi Hovhannisyan as the joint candidate. Admittedly, it would be honest, if every political force or civic initiative that raises the issue of the joint candidate also stated whom they saw as the joint candidate. Perhaps, in that case, we will have the list of opposition candidates – I suppose, with their election programs – from which the joint candidate will be selected also with the help of the opposition electorate. Although I want to state once again that unfortunately, it is hard to believe given the realities of the opposition camp that the opposition can announce a joint candidate. Nonetheless, the Heritage Party will try to unite and be united for the presidential election as much as it can.”
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
