Today www.aravot.am asked Samvel Balasanyan to clarify President Serzh Sargsyan’s statement made in Gyumri that “yes, the claims spread in the press that I have proposed that Samvel Balasanyan be announced as a candidate for the mayor correspond to the reality. Yes, it is so. In this particular case, I think, Samvel Balasanyan can solve the problems that exist in this community better than the others. In the first place, the atmosphere in Gyumri should be changed and I think that Samvel Balasanyan can change the atmosphere.”
We were particularly interested in why Samvel Balasanyan had denied the circulating news claiming that he had visited 26 Baghramyan on business, to discuss agricultural issues with the president and not to get his go-ahead, if the president had proposed that he be announced as a candidate. Let us remind that he is the chairman of the National Assembly standing committee on agriculture and environment.
Mr. Balasanyan refused to make any comment not hearing out our question and advising us to ask Zohrap Yeganyan, his press secretary.
“I don’t see anything strange, since the president as the head of the country can propose that people who have respective qualities and capabilities, regardless of what party they belong to, be announced as candidates for a certain office, particularly given the fact that it is about fixing the situation in a town that has such a high level of poverty. And as the head of the country stated yesterday, there is a need for changing the atmosphere and Samvel Balasanyan can do that. Moreover, Samvel Balasanyan has been receiving proposals also from different layers of the society to be announced as a candidate for the mayor of Gyumri for a long time. It is also true that the decision to announce Mr. Balasanyan as a candidate was made at the meeting of the PAP political council, since Mr. Balasanyan is a member of that party,”Zohrap Yeganyan said during a conversation with us.
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Let us state that the strangest thing about this election campaign is that the candidate announced by the PAP political council is not endorsed by the influential local members of the PAP – the leadership of both the regional office of Shirak and the town office with their huge electorate. They don’t interfere in Mr. Balasanyan’s affairs at all and don’t participate in his campaign meetings. This fact, according to some information, is conditional on personal problems, in accordance with the mentality “why Samvel Balasanyan and not me.”
Nune AREVSHATYAN
