According to Edmon Marukyan, head of the Bright Armenia party, the parliamentary elections shouldn’t be compared to the Yerevan City Council elections, since the Yerevan elections were carried out in a different atmosphere. “The rhetoric used during the city council elections was different. We also had the “black and white” issue, the elections were carried out in a proportional manner, and more. Now, I think that we will be having elections that are more focused on ideology and the future, whereas the city council elections aimed to answer the question of whether or not the parliament should dissolve. If Bright Armenia’s ratings during the last elections were at 10 percent, then they will double now. Therefore, if it was in third place during those elections, it will be in second place now.”
When asked if participating in an election for the first time as an independent political party will be beneficial for them, considering that Bright Armenia participated as part of the Yelq alliance during the 2017 parliamentary elections, and as part of the Luys alliance during the Yerevan City Council elections, Edmon Marukyan replied, “The political teams realized during the last elections that, if they were to work against the Republicans as separate political teams, there would be a fiasco. This realization caused the formulation of the Yelq alliance, which we are all proud of. We needed to be allied then, but now there is no regime and no need to be gathered, therefore, any format that we created would have been fake. Bright Armenia and the other forces have extraordinary chances now, why shouldn’t we make use of it? Regarding the Yerevan City Council elections, we found out within a short period of time that our colleagues in Yelq intended to participate separately, and so we decided to create a new brand.”
Hripsime Jebejyan
