“I have set a political record by being in 3,000 residencies of the Arabkir district,” Aram Manukyan, member of the Armenian National Movement administration, announced on Wednesday. “I have been able to talk with nearly 5,000 people in a month.” Based on his estimates, he has met with 161 people on a daily basis.
Not doubting the fact that Manukyan has set a record, let us recall that he is a candidate by the majority electoral system in the 4th precinct of the Arabkir district, and is competing against Republican candidate Zohrab Zohrabyan and member of the “Prosperous Armenia” party Hayrapet Hayrapetyan.
According to Manukyan, unlike the Republican and “Prosperous Armenia” parties, the ratings of “Impeachment” and “New Times” parties are going up after the daring speeches made by leader of “New Times” Aram Karapetyan. The “Dashnaktsutyun” and “Country of Law” parties have some electorate, while Geghamyan’s “National Unity” party’s electorate is decreasing in number. Manukyan thinks that he has a serious chance of winning in the Arabkir district, although the authorities there have attempted to confuse voters during the pre-election period. Armen Manukyan had been nominated to create confusion with his last name. Then Armen Manukyan left the campaign and called on his voters to vote for the “Prosperous Armenia” candidate.
“The next day the word spread that Aram Manukyan had stepped out of the campaign,” said the speaker. “It took me a week to explain to voters that I was not the one stepping out of the campaign. That was a little game.”
Leader of the “National Concord” Aram Harutyunyan also expressed his political views with Aram Manukyan during the press conference at “Hayeli” club. According to Harutyunyan, the people are disappointed in the opposition as well. The opposition has been busier debating the results of the previous elections throughout the past couple of years and as a result has not even had small accomplishments. During that time, the citizens of Armenia have realized that they are alone in the country.
“The opposition was busy with other things,” says Mr. Harutyunyan, who also considers himself an oppositionist, based on the logic that he is not part of government and is striving to come to power. Harutyunyan has toured the villages of Armenia and has seen despair and indifference in the eyes of the villagers towards everything. Harutyunyan considers it unacceptable that political parties take people in a couple of buses when they go to the rallies so that they can fill the auditoriums and public squares with people. He is surprised to see some oppositionists doing the same. There is a group of people working as “extras” for the political parties, just like film directors, who gather and take people in buses to film in movies. Each party takes “extras” like that, and those people don’t wander around all the districts for nothing. They are paid by the parties to create a scene, clap and speak in favor of the party. Some of them play the roles of kissing the party leaders and other major roles as well.
Aram Manukyan has also noticed public indifference towards the elections.
“There is a danger that people will not participate in the elections,” says member of the Armenian National Movement administration. “Armenian voters revolt behind closed doors, in their homes, but they are too lazy to express that revolt in the polling booth.”
The speakers of the press conference also touched upon the events regarding Alexander Arzumanyan, Vahan Shirkhanyan and Shahen Petrosyan. It is clear that the Armenian National Movement administration member was firmer in his comments, while Aram Harutyunyan was a little more on the relaxed side. According to Manukyan, the events connected to Arzumanyan and Shirkhanyan have a political subtext. Both speakers condemned the beating of Petrosyan. With regards to the brutal beating of Petrosyan, however, Aram Harutyunyan said that Petrosyan had not behaved correctly by blurting out nicknames in public places.
“People have two names – one given by their parents and one given to them by the public,” said Manukyan in closing. “If more than half of Armenian parliamentarians have nicknames given by the public and their friends and the people know them that way, whom can you blame? The public knows the deputies by their nicknames. People are like that. Do you want to take that away from them?”