www.aravot.am asked Sahak Minasyan, the newly-appointed manager of the RPA organization in the region of Shirak, whether he would find himself in an awkward position, if PAP leader Gagik Tsarukyan decided to announce his candidacy for the presidential election. Naturally, we reminded this official that the region of Shirak “is prospering”; it is under the PAP control, the majority of MPs elected from the region of Shirak are members of the PAP, Samvel Balasanyan, the mayor of Gyumri, is also a member of the PAP. Moreover, the residents of Shirak regarded as the poorest showed during the National Assembly election already that they don’t trust the ruling party and casting votes for the PAP, expect an alternative. “First of all, let me say that we, representatives of the Republican
Party, I, as the chairman of a regional council, am convinced, I don’t think, I am convinced that we have such a candidate represented by the incumbent president who is a creative president and candidate for president supporting new approaches, and we don’t attach importance to the nomination of this or that alternative opposition candidate. So we ourselves nominate our candidate, the incumbent president, with a conviction.”
In response to our question whether he wanted to say that the people would cast their votes for Serzh Sargsyan, even if Martun Grigoryan, Mushegh Petoyan, PAP MPs elected from the region of Shirak, mayor of Gyumri Samvel Balasanyan, also RPA mayor of Artik Arsen Abrahamyan who had been officially endorsed by the PAP in the local elections united and tried to ensure respective votes for Gagik Tsarukyan, Mr. Minasyan said: “Absolutely, let me make just one correction to what you have said about who endorsed the mayor of Artik – he is a member of the Republican Party. There are personal relations inside and outside politics in all countries around the world, not only in Armenia, if our current mayor was supported to a certain extent, this doesn’t mean that there may be any partial deviation in the presidential election, because I know this person very well. As for the other representatives of our party that have been mentioned, I don’t want to make comments on any particular person, but you have said in your question that the region of Shirak is Prospering, that is a false impression that the Prosperous Armenia Party is more powerful in this region than the RPA. This is an impression that doesn’t correspond to the reality. The RPA has a work style and supporters with more active, constructive and creative approaches than any party. I would ask you, as a journalist, not to call our region Prosperous, while speaking about it next time.”
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In response to our observation that the National Assembly election, during which the PAP had been defeated in Gyumr,i and at the regional level, the PAP had lost to the RPA by a small margin, had shown that, Mr. Minasyan continued: “It is a fact that the Prosperous Armenia Party lost to the Republican Party in the National Assembly election; in Gyumri, the Prosperous Armenia Party won more votes than the Republican Party, but this cannot reflect the overall situation in the region, and you will see that in the upcoming presidential election regardless of what parties the other candidates are members of.”
Why is he so sure that the population of the region of Shirak considered as the poorest and emptying day by day will vote for Serzh Sargsyan, why should it trust the leader of a party that has impoverished it? “There is an approach in traditional medicine – the approach of pain is conditional on the strength of pain. You said that it was a poor region, right? 300 million dollars have been spent, in order to overcome the region’s status of disaster area, huts; it was done, according to the election program of our party leader, the incumbent president, in 2008. It means that if jobs were the primary goal in one region, in Shirak, it was apartments; that is why I say that our president shows a creative approach. I gave you a fact and an example, which will persuade the resident of Shirak,” the PAP organization manager mentioned.
Nune AREVSHATYAN
