Levon Zurabyan, the Armenian National Congress (ANC) coordinator, thinks that the ANC is the most powerful political force in Armenia.
“If a free and fair election is held in Armenia, the Congress will win in any election, be it a parliamentary election, a presidential election, or a council election. That is why I think that the Congress is the most powerful political force in Armenia. Don’t judge by the results of the National Assembly election, the number of seats etc.; we know that they are obtained through a rigged election.” Mr. Zurabyan told www.aravot.am.
As for what resources the ANC had to win the upcoming election, Mr. Zurabyan clarified: “You think only oligarchs or criminals are resources? The strength of the ANC is in our ideological and human resources. It is the biggest resource we have…. Admittedly, we live in an illegal electoral system, and the Congress is not able to turn the support of the people it has into real offices. However, it doesn’t discourage us at all; we will continue our struggle, we will fight. And I am sure that we have been able to change the country in the past 5 years.”
In response to our question why political forces that hadn’t participated in the presidential election had decided to participate in the city council election and whether they didn’t have the same fear that the government would use the administrative resource during this election too, Mr. Zurabyan said: “There was no chance in the presidential election, and in the city council election, we clearly see that it is possible, there is a chance, if the opposition forces work together to rescue Yerevan from the ruling tyrannical pyramid. The possibilities of the regime to rig the Yerevan election are fewer than in case of national elections. Besides, the only possibility to challenge the rigging machine in the presidential election was to create one pole, one challenge, around which the other political forces would rally; it wasn’t successful. Since the Yerevan City Council election is through proportional representation, there is no need for creating such a pole; one can participate in the election with a separate team and then form a coalition to solve the same issue.”
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He wished good luck to the Democratic Motherland Party, a member of the former ANC coalition, which had joined the Hello Yerevan Coalition participating in the election, without further comment.
Arpine SIMONYAN
