Candidate for presidency Artashes Geghamyan, whose party members say that he is not a “mine” within the opposition but an “intercontinental missile”, has said that according to his information, Levon Ter-Petrosyan and his supporters are going to create conflicts in polling stations on the election day.
Geghamyan also says that he has information that Levon Ter-Petrosyan and his supporters intend to drive the society to a civic war since he believes that Ter-Petrosyan’s goal is not becoming president, but “ten years have passed and he just needs to change his citizenship”. However, Geghamyan did not clarify the logics of his statements and what those ten years mean and why the first president needs to change his citizenship. APP leader Stepan Demirchyan thinks that Geghamyan’s statements are an attempt for sabotage. “Such statements are just sabotage,” Demirchyan said during yesterday’s press-conference and noted that such announcements are baseless and highlighted that the first president has numerously said that he prefers the peaceful way of struggling. He believes that if the authorities don’t try to undermine the processes, there won’t be any conflicts. “What would they do if Ter-Petrosyan didn’t run for president? His nomination has created good opportunities for some people for political trade, I mean that they have got jobs as a result of that”. Demirchyan, whose party is one of those parties advocating Levon Ter-Petrosyan, also spoke about the thesis of the authorities that there are differences in Ter-Petrosyan’s policy, which means that the mentioned cooperation is artificial. Demirchyan said that there could be some differences in approaches, which he believes is normal. However, there are issues such as the terror of October 27, the thesis of getting rid of the authorities, which they have agreed upon. “The primary objective is to get rid of this clan-oligarchic system. We should get rid of this mafia structure in favor of the state interests,” he said. Yesterday he also spoke about the biased coverage, misinformation and “unethical expressions” produced by Mass Media. “For some of them unethical coverage has become a business style. With such behavior they just show their poor appearance,” said the APP leader. The latter believes that there are some limits of correctness in political competition and such limits should not be crossed, which is being done by some pro-government media companies. Demirchyan says that such media companies should be shame of their behavior as elections are very important for the nation. “Now we can see what is happening. We have talked about coverage already. The falsification process has already started. How did it start in 2003? In 2002 they closed down A1+. What is happening now? They are closing down Gala TV company, exploding the editorial office of “Chorrord Ishkhanutyun”. The electoral process cannot be estimated only on the last day, but it should concern the overall electoral processes”. He also discussed some issues concerning the elections of 1996. He said that besides the elections of 1991 and the parliamentary elections of 1999 all the other elections have been violated “to some extent” in Armenia. Specifically concerning the elections of 1996 Demirchyan said that the first president had said during his last rally that in case of being elected he was ready to charge those people, who were guilty of those violations. He also spoke about different public polls, according to which Serzh Sargsyan is supported by majority of voters and Levon Ter-Petrosyan is supported just by 2-3% of voters. “In Armenia sociology is an exact science: you get as much as you pay. Such polls cannot be accepted seriously by serious people. These polls are a basement for further violations. Even those polls are showing that the image of the first president tends to growing. There was time when they said only 0,9% would vote for me, but we won just during the first round,” said Demirchyan and highlighted that even the rallies show that the support of the first president tends to growing. “There haven’t been such rallies since 2003,” stressed the APP leader. The issues of the Armenian Genocide recognition and the Armenian-Turkish relations were discussed too. Demirchyan says that they advocate the policy of commencing relations with Turkey without any pre-conditions and that the issue of the Genocide recognition should be in the “agenda” of the Armenia people. Mr. Demirchyan highly appreciates the role of the Armenian Diaspora and the work done by the Soviet and independent Armenia to bring up the Genocide issue. At the end of the press-conference the APP leaders congratulated the journalists on the coming New Year and expressed hope that in the beginning of the New Year the process of “cleaning up the Augean Stables” will start.