During the press conference held yesterday political scientist, director of CMI Alexadr Iskandaryan said that it is too early to make any predictions about elections. According to him on the eve of the holidays, the internal political life will become quiet and the real pre-election campaign will start only after the second half of January. Although Iskandaryan thinks it is too early to make predictions about election results he thinks that the main race will proceed among two candidates – Serzh Sargsyan and Levon Ter-Petrosyan. Iskandaryan considers ARF candidate Vahan Hovhannisyan a quite serious competitor. “I think this is somewhat irresponsible statement but I think Dashnaktsutyun possesses the votes of 15% of the electorate,” he mentioned. In General he thinks that the ARF did the right thing to nominate its own candidate during the presidential elections because it would unacceptable for a serious party like ARF not to have a candidate. “Only these two candidates have desire to stage a serious campaign for this position. It is another question that pre-election campaign usually pursues other goals as well – confirmation of personal position in politics, acquirement of levers in the future government or a simple Olympic principle – the most important thing is participation. But those candidates whose goal is to win the presidential post are two in Armenia. But their chance to win is a different issue.” The activity of those two candidates, according to the speaker is on different planes. Ter-Petrosyan is a public figure and has great experience to work with the crowd. “ He can manipulate the crowd, he can speak, he is well aware of his advantages and uses them. He usually works in this field. Serzh Sargsyan political figure is striking in terms of his practical qualities: “ He is a governing, organizing personality. Which means he is a political figure that acts in quite different domain. Thus, it turns out, in case of these two candidates we deal with two realities that have noting to do with each other. The political scientist described Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s return to politics as a phenomenon that removes the campaign from the domain being established by the parliamentary elections in May. “Without him the campaign will take place in one domain, the same that happened during the parliamentary elections. It is the domain of management and organization, the sphere of those who have organizing abilities.” As of the attitude of various international structures about the upcoming presidential elections, the political scientist emphasized that the international community has not mentioned any candidate specifically so far. “And in general, no one will make a direct statement about supporting anyone despite the fact that different organizations, structures and people would love that.”
