Talking about the meeting between Raffi Hovhannisyan and Serzh Sargsyan during a conversation with www.aravot.am, Aram Harutyunyan, the leader of the National Accord Party, said that it was hard to make a comment about Raffi Hovhannisyan, he didn’t know what he wanted; he was unpredictable. “I said from the beginning that this election was illegal, and it was fruitless to try to find the hearth of statehood in it. That meeting was a mistake from the beginning. It was a mistake that Raffi went, because at first he said that Serzh Sargsyan should come, then he went to the meeting, made people wait outside, and
when he came out, he didn’t tell the details. I cannot say what he talked with Serzh Sargsyan about, but the tone was like he had gone to arrange a marriage. However, one shouldn’t go like that. A person who is going to take power should force; Serzh Sargsyan should have felt bad, but it wasn’t the case, and Raffi Hovhannisyan’s attitude was not that of the victorious candidate.” In response to a question whether Raffi Hovhannisyan would accept, if, according to him, he had been offered an office, Harutyunyan said that if he said that Serzh Sargsyan had not been elected, one could not ask for an office from an unelected president, it was absurd. “One should not ask or get something from an unelected president, but demand, force. Besides, what office can he get? The parliamentary majority is in Serzh’s pocket, and even if he is offered the prime ministership, they can fire him in a month, because when one doesn’t have the parliamentary majority, it is pointless to become the Prime Minister, let alone a minister….” According to Harutyunyan, Raffi Hovhannisyan’s votes were against Serzh Sargsyan, there must be votes from the Armenian National Congress (ANC), the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP), and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) among them too. “One part wrote Cheburashka or Kim Kardashian on the ballot in protest, the other part voted for Raffi Hovhannisyan, against the government.”
Eva HAKOBYAN
