-Mr Simonyan, the elections for the district chief will be held once
again on Sunday. In the previous interview in our newspaper you
complained especially about “United Labour Party” (ULP) when speaking
about electoral bribe and violations, noting, that they provided huge
financial support in favour of the competitor of your candidate Arayik
Kotanjyan.
-No, we found out that information later. Before, there had not been
cases like that. The election days are usually very full, we get a lot
of different information, a lot of people try to give information,
which they think is correct, and accordingly there are many
misunderstandings. Maybe we had to be more quiet.
There were violations, and also electoral bribe was given to people,
but fortunately it turned out that the information, that ULP had
distributed about electoral bribe in the name of our competitor wasn’t
right. We used to be in good relations with ULP, and we still are, and
it is good that these factors didn’t impact on those relations. I don’t
think that this information was given with any purposes either. It’s
just that the period was very long and we had a lot on our shoulders,
we were in a rush to find out the reasons for the creation of such a
situation. And everyone acted in the same way. I wasn’t the only one
doing this. It was impossible to analyze the situation then. Now
everything has passed. And new elections are going to take place, and I
am sure, that our voters will be able to prove that they had won. Our
voters will try to protect their votes again.
-Your competitor always speaks about violations, interferences at the
polling stations, and it is noted, that you took part in it too. What
can you say about this?
-I am not against that. We will still have to discuss the reason, how
it could happen, that the number of the votes for Valeri Harutiunyan
were more for several hundred times during the calculation at night,
and later its number was cut down. There is a good method: attacking is
the best way for protection. They have forgotten, that we were the
first to complaint and the first to ask to reconsider the results of a
lot of polling stations, and if the time let us, we would prove the
fact, that we had won. It is impossible, for a person, who had ruled a
big company in the Soviet times and had a good professional experience
with thousands of people, lose the competition to a young man, who was
not well known. At least, a lot of people knew our relatives in
Kanaker, a lot of people knew us in Zeitun, Valeri Harutiunyan had been
the director of a company, where a lot of people both from Zeitun and
from Arabkir had worked. We had met all of them and presented all the
work our candidate was going to do in our community. We don’t have to
collect capital now, create a good name, create a good living. We have
created these so far with our hard work of many years and now we want
to serve our community. We don’t go to the polling stations holding the
hands of people. And the voters differ: there are people who are able
to work and some who are not, they differ a small businessman from an
economist with a good biography. And they did this on September 18 as
well.
October is coming up. Our voters will not be satisfied only with voting
for their candidate, they will protect their vote and will not let any
appearances like electoral bribe take place. It is evident that a
person, elected with the help of bribe, cannot do anything for the
district and community.