There is no active working environment in the central headquarters of presidential candidate NDU chairman Vazgen Manukyan, which is located at the NDU office. The reason is that perhaps the official campaign hasn’t started yet. According to Manukyan’s head of campaign, chairman of the National State Party Samvel Shahinyan their representatives are currently working by exchanging and filtering information. After the launch of the official campaign on January 21 the branch offices will become active as well. The head of the campaign is satisfied with the activities so far. “We have already taken care of key technical issues,” Shahinyan said. Manukyan’s platform will be published by the end of the week and will be distributed among the voters. Three NDU offices were established in Yerevan – one in the NDU office as we mentioned, the city headquarters is going to be located in the SIM party office, and the campaign office of the Kentron community will be located at the party office of Arshak Sadoyan. It is planned to create 7 more offices in Yerevan. There will be NDU offices in all marzes of RA. According to Shahinyan, NDU will have 41 offices in Armenia during the campaign. “Mostly our offices are already established but they don’t function. We already receive information from our branch office representatives but we don’t call for active work at this stage. Of course there will be meetings with voters during the campaign but we will mostly deliver our message via media.” “Perhaps other candidates will need to communicate with voters more often because they haven’t done so in past. Everyone knows Vazgen. Through meetings we can reach maximum 1-2% of voters. The only version is TV time. But it is not enough either. Therefore we are thinking about delivering our candidates messages though CDs,” he says. The application of CDs during campaigns is an innovation in Armenia, which was first applied by the first RA president Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s supporters. However, Shahinyan doesn’t agree with this assumption. Manukyan is going to use the free airing time as well as the party is contemplating over buying some minutes from TV channels, which have “terribly high” prices. According to the amended RA Electoral Code the candidates have the right to use 60 free TV minutes and 120 paid minutes during the campaign. According to Shahinyan this is quite short time to communicate the message of their candidate to the people in the case when the governmental candidates have 10 times more opportunities to do so. But in general, according to Shahinyan, the expenses defined for the presidential candidate is not enough at all for broadcasting, publication, fuel, salaries, etc. Manukyan’s campaign office is willing to spend much more than that but the law doesn’t authorize to. But where do they get that much money? “The society likes us. We have great people, who always support their friends. Besides that we have many volunteers,” he says. But what does the NDU campaign office wish to communicate to people? “There is one candidate, Vazgen Manukyan, who doesn’t have anything in common with the current oligarchic system. All the other candidates are closely linked with the current economic and state structures. These people cannot have any state support because their businesses prosper in our country. Thus in the event of their election the re-distribution of the economy is going to take place and it is going to mean that we are still going to have several rich people and many poor ones. We must overcome this dangerous process through democratization. It means that if any of the other candidates gets elected none of those businesses will move to the tax field and the corruption won’t reduce. They come to power to make their own team oligarchs. But Manukyan wishes to lead the country in a way to make us relevant to international criteria,” said Shahinyan. And what are the guarantees that in the event of Manukyan’s victory his supporters or Shahinyan himself wouldn’t wish to become an oligarch? “Before the independence I have had millions. I went to Moscow in 1988 with 4 million USD in order to buy weapon. I have had businesses during the Soviet period. The current economic conditions and functions in Armenia are not for me. I can only work in the legal environment,” he says. Manukyan got nominated a presidential candidate three times so far and lost. Do his teammates know the chances of their candidate? “Regardless of anything Manukyan is going to be elected President because if the ballots are falsified again the country will be destroyed. Our country has no other way but be democratic. And the only option for democratization is Manukyan. During certain time or after the campaign Manukyan’s ideology will win anyway. In any case we are victorious,” Shahinyan said. But what if in this case as well their candidate is not elected? What will the steps of the NDU be in this case? “We will probably create a party with supporters if we come to consent. We will struggle to create a democratic state. During the past 4 years we have been speaking of violations and falsifications. Every time 100-150 people participate in election fraudulence. Has anyone been punished? People admit all that. If this game is repeated once again then our people don’t have future. How can we do something else from what people want us to do? We will do what people want us to do.”
