“That is impossible. I am convinced that those are myths,” the head of the Prosperous Armenia pre-election headquarters, Vardan Vardanyan, told Aravot Daily about rumors regarding Prosperous Armenia distributing bribes during the June 20th snap parliamentary elections. Vardan Vardanyan was convinced due to the fact that such a thing (referring to bribery– N.G.) has never happened before.
According to our sources, however, and according to the operative information received by the police, Sargis S., the head of the Azatashen community of the Ararat province, gave a resident of the Hayanist community, Georgy M., 300,000 AMD in order to secure votes for the Prosperous Armenia Party during the snap parliamentary elections. After finding out from the election results that the expected number of votes had not been secured, he received the mentioned amount from Georgy M. on June 23rd. Materials on the case are being prepared.
In a conversation with Aravot Daily, Mikael Melkumyan, who ranks second on the PAP pre-election list, considers the rumors about election bribes to be nonsense. “Since when have they been speaking about that? What is the result? Nothing.”
The Prosperous Armenia party leader Gagik Tsarukyan was arrested on September 25, 2020. He was accused of organizing electoral bribery during the 2017 parliamentary elections. Tsarukyan did not plead guilty and has repeatedly stated that he was a victim of political persecution for demanding the government’s resignation. The case, however, is not closed.
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Prosecutor General Arthur Davtyan recently announced in parliament that “for obvious reasons” it will be examined for a long time. Mikael Melkumyan is not aware of the specific case, nor does he not know details. “There is a legal process, let the lawyers handle it. There is nothing special to comment on, but election bribes are ruled out for Prosperous Armenia.”
Nelly Grigoryan
