Another bloody election
Yesterday Serzh Sargsyan, the leader of the ruling Republican Party and a candidate for president, said during a meeting in the Yeghvard House of Culture within the framework of the campaign in the region of Kotayk: “OK, the president who is elected through a free and fair election has a big mouth; it is big in international organizations, it is big when he carries out reforms inside the country.” As early as before the election campaign the Republicans had called for conducting a free, fair, and transparent election, being absolutely sure they would win and making statements about that. “You know that we have always attached importance to holding good, free, and fair elections. It is very important for having a powerful and developed state. If your citizen doesn’t trust you, doesn’t trust the results of elections, that citizen will hardly show his true worth. We live inside the international community, and it would be very desirable, it would be as necessary as the air we breathe, if our partners also trusted the results of this election, if they were sure that they dealt with the man who had really been elected. Therefore, I ask you all to make sure that no one criticizes us, neither our citizens, nor the international observers, particularly given the fact that we are offered brilliant opportunities. It seems they offer us an opportunity on a plate to conduct the best election that complies with the European standards,” Serzh Sargsyan, the Republican candidate for president, said in the administrative district of Davitashen during his first campaign meeting.
The smooth progress of the election was disrupted by the unprecedented shots fired on the 11th day. Who and why shot at the leader of the Union for National Self-Determination (UNSD) and a candidate for president? Against whom were those shots, Hayrikyan, Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan, the peaceful election campaign or the presidential election and its results? The 1995 parliamentary election, then the 1996 presidential election and their results, the events of October 27, April 12-13, March 1, and February 1; why isn’t it possible to conduct an election in independent Armenia without blood? Aravot tried to get answers to some of these questions from Vardan Harutyunyan, the head of the Center for Freedom and Rights.
* Can the incident that happened to Paruyr Hayrikyan create a new political situation in Armenia?
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* I cannot say what it will result in, but I can surely say that this is a new thing in Armenia. This is the first time that one has shot at a candidate for president. Admittedly, there have been violent actions against candidates for president in the past; let us remember Levon Ter-Petrossian’s actions, the events of March 1, the “clearing up” of Freedom Square, there has been everything, but this is the first case that one has shot at a candidate for president. I don’t know who, why, for what. I hope that it will be solved, and one will be able to say something.
* Do you share the opinion that what happened was a political action against the Armenian state and statehood?
* This was an action against a politician, an action against a candidate for president, and that action certainly, surely was against the state.
* Do you see similarities between the election campaign of 1996 and the current election campaign?
* No, I don’t. Now I don’t see any election campaign at all. I mean I don’t see any election. I can surely say that there is no election. There is no process, as a result of which a part of society may not know exactly this one or that one will be elected. There was such a situation in 1996; there was a government and opposition, and the opposition basically could have won.
* I mean in 1996, methods were used that cast a shadow on Levon Ter-Petrossian’s reelection. It seems that now there are signs of it.
* Every government faces the threat of being shadowed; it doesn’t matter whether it is Levon Ter-Petrossian, Serzh Sargsyan or I. The government should take every action possible, in order to keep this shadowing away from it. In that sense, the only similarity is that this one is a government, and that one was a government too.
* Don’t you think that shots at Paruyr Hayrikyan were shots at Serzh Sargsyan? Serzh Sargsyan needed this incident with all its consequences least of all.
* I don’t know who needed it, who didn’t need it, and who will or won’t benefit from it, but as a result of a gunshot Paruyr Hayrikyan was injured, not Serzh Sargsyan.
NELLY GRIGORYAN
Aravot Daily
