www.aravot.am inquired of Vardan Ayvazyan, a Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) MP, how they were going to convince the citizens disappointed with their “Toward Secure Armenia” promise to believe their “Better Yerevan” promise. “A larger part of society believed that the RPA, namely its leader Serzh Sargsyan, would carry out the reforms toward secure Armenia; 860 thousand voters say, ‘Yes, we believe in secure Armenia.’ That is why a larger part of voters can believe in the version of better Yerevan.” In his words, the president of the republic invited Raffi Hovhannisyan to the negotiating table for exactly secure
Armenia. “Come as the opposition side, we offer to give you the supervising mechanisms, let us sit down and talk about the reforms.”
In response to our observation that Raffi Hovhannisyan and Serzh Sargsyan were engaged in bargaining, he said: “Excuse me, but everything is bargaining. You tell the people, ‘We should suck it up for a while,’ you are already engaged in bargaining. Is Raffi Hovhannisyan or the oppositionist concerned about the people or his own condition?” In response to our question whether he didn’t fear that opposition forces would form a coalition after the city council election and as the representatives of the opposition say, would take the post of the mayor of Yerevan away from the government this time, he said: “So what? We do what we said; if they unite, come, and take it, we will see what they have to say too.”
Arpine SIMONYAN
