“Why have you come? There are only a few youths left; have you come to do them in too?” a woman shouted at Raffi Hovhannisyan before his rally in the town of Sevan today, seeing him say hello from the opposite sidewalk on the street. She started to curse Raffi Hovhannisyan, but the latter didn’t respond in any way and moved on. Later on a man started to shout roughly the same kind of words at Raffi Hovhannisyan. When one of the Heritage Party supporters asked whether the mayor had given him 5000 drams, how much he had paid, the woman switched to curses. www.aravot.am published information about the alerts of the residents of Sevan yesterday that the mayor wandered around town as early as yesterday and warned people not to go to this meeting. Despite those warnings, it was interesting that there were residents who received Raffi Hovhannisyan hospitably. Some people even used expressions “Sweetheart” and “Esteemed brother” to address Raffi Hovhannisyan.
After the muster-meeting, the Heritage Party leader was approached by a young man named Karen Zhamharyan. He mocked that Raffi Hovhannisyan hadn’t kept his word, that he hadn’t continued the hunger strike, then started to inquire what the point of that was, whether it was abstention or hunger strike. Raffi Hovhannisyan replied: “I didn’t link the Armenian people’s fight to the finish with not eating. I said that we would have new Armenia on April 9, and we will carry this task through. Your intention may be good. But those overtones of yours are deceitful. It was a strike against lies, fraud and the last week was about abstention. It was for the Republic of Armenia, not for partisanship, so that we could put up our struggle for our children, to get out of this fraud, these lies, this anti-Nzhdehist partisan abyss. The people are not interested in what my self-sacrifice is called any longer, but every Armenian should sacrifice a little, so that we have the Armenia that is not connected with either Raffi or Serzh, or any other name. It is not important what my sacrifice is called.” The young man assured that he was not a member of any party.
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
