Regarding the local elections in the town of Sisian, there have been tensions among the Republicans in recent days. The mayoral election there is due on September 9 and none of the 5 candidates that have been announced is Republican. This has been the very reason for tensions.
Aghasi Hakobjanyan, the current mayor and a member of the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP), Tigran Poghosyan, a member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), and non-partisans Mher Azoyan, Gevorg Bagyan and Hrachik Khachatryan will compete in the mayoral election. The RPA has discussed the issue of announcing Samvel Tangyan as its candidate in Sisian from the beginning; the candidacy was put forward by the Sisian local office of the party too. However, the RPA leadership has decided not to have a candidate in Sisian and to endorse the PAP candidate – i.e. the current mayor – as it has done in Gyumri. According to our information, Hovik Abrahamyan, the National Assembly speaker, has arranged that and has done so as the PAP candidate doesn’t have any rival covertly endorsing his kin.
On the day of the last session of the RPA council, in which the issue of candidates in local elections was discussed, Galust Sahakyan, the deputy leader of the RPA, assured in response to a question of www.aravot.am whether there had been any contradictions regarding any candidate that no, since their local offices had announced the candidates and they would endorse those who had been announced. In this regard, today www.aravot.am inquired of Galust Sahakyan why the RPA leadership hadn’t supported RPA candidate Samvel Tangyan and how he would explain the current tensions in Sisian. In his words, “Those are processes characteristic of elections. There can
always be different talks, internal discussions and backstage discussions during elections. We don’t have particular problems, tensions in that regard.” We asked to clarify why the RPA hadn’t accepted Samvel Tangyan’s candidacy, since it had been proposed by their local office, Mr. Sahakyan replied, “By the way, many candidacies, including Tangyan’s candidacy, were discussed regarding Sisian. The main principle is the following – we choose the candidate that is the most acceptable for the population.”
Read also
Galust Sahakyan stated that they would really support the PAP candidate – the current mayor – in Sisian.
We asked to clarify whether it was possible that Hovik Abrahamyan had something to do here, because there were speculations that he had had a meeting with Suren Khachatryan, the governor of Syunik, and had tried to do so as the potential candidates of the RPA had no chances of participating, Mr. Sahakyan replied, “We have met with everyone, Hovik Abrahamyan coordinates the whole election process, mainly, our local offices make decisions.”
In response to our question whether in that case Hovik Abrahamyan didn’t defend the interests of the PAP not leaving any RPA candidate in Sisian, he said, “Why should he defend the PAP interests? No, there is no such thing. They just try to speculate on that tendency. I don’t think that such a thing can happen, the overall results of the local elections will show that.”
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
