Republican Khachik Manukyan, who was elected as deputy on May 12, dropped his mandate early last week. During the press conference that followed shortly after, he explained what he did in the following way:
“Since there were rumors flying around that there were violations, pressure, and more, I decided to drop my mandate to put an end to all that so that new elections could take place.”
Manukyan plans to run in the same precinct. He assured that he filled out the application to drop his deputy mandate. He also “clarified” why he said “I don’t know anything” when journalists had asked him to give reasons for dropping his mandate. The thing is that, according to Manukyan, when they asked him why he dropped his mandate, he got confused and said that he didn’t know anything. In reality, he says, he was “confused” because he had refused to take the proportional mandate. “Justice” alliance member Felix Khachatryan asked the Central Electoral Commission administration during the out-of-turn session held Monday why the applications filed by 26 Republicans regarding the dropping of mandates had no deadline. This regards those on the Republican Party’s proportional list who had filed an application to the CEC to take their names out of the party’s proportional list. In response to Khachatryan’s question as to why those applications lack the deadline, with an exception for Serge Sargsyan’s application, CEC president Garegin Azaryan and vice-president Abraham Bakhchagulyan and CEC secretary Hamlet Abrahamyan did not give any response. Khachatryan announced that if there was no deadline for submitting the applications, then perhaps they were submitted before the elections, and in that case those people were not supposed to vote by the Republican Party proportional list because that is a violation of the law.