Our newspaper has written that the general director of VivaCell company is discussed by the Russian authorities as a potential candidate for presidential elections in Armenia. The general director of VivaCell company, Ralf Yirikyan is famous with philanthropic activities and has high rating in Armenia.
We have also published information writing that the Armenian government was worried about the PR projects of VivaCell-MTS company and the highly positive attitude of people from the remote regions to Yirikyan. In May 2011 Facebook users circulated a list of people who did not belong to any parties, would have national thinking and would have people’s vote. Citizens of Armenia and Karabakh would nominate and vote for their cabdidates. Ralf Yirikyan’s name was in that list too. Most of the users voted for Yirikyan after Levon Ter-Petrosyan in answer to question who would they liked to be their next president. Some time later there were rumors that Yirkiyan could be the next potential prime-minister of Armenia. A couple of days ago the Russian Cnews internet news agency published an article entitled “MTS sponsors Armenia’s potential president ralf Yirikyan”, which became a topic of active discussions in Armenia (http://www.cnews.ru /news /top/index.shtml? 2011/11/29/466299). According to the Cnews, the MTS company issued 90million dollars credit to Pierre Fatush and Musa Fatush, businessmen from Lebanon, who are co-owners of the Armenian VivaCell company, which belongs to the Russian MTS company. The market participants do not exclude the possibility that the credit may be needed for the purpose of supporting the mentioned businessmen’s relative Ralf Yirikyan to implement his political project for the purpose of becoming a potential candidate for president of Armenia. The Cnews informs that the MTS has prolonged the two option agreements on buying the 20% share in the Armenian company from the Fatush family till 2016. In 2007 the MTS paid 260 million Euros and bought the International Cell Holding offshore company’s 80% by paying only 50 million Euros during three years. At that time the parties made call- and put- option agreements on buying the remaining 20%. The first one of these agreements would enable the MTS to buy that package, and the other one enabled the Fatush family to sell the shares of the MTS company. The preliminary term of both option agreements terminated in 2012. According to a new agreement. In case of implementation of call option the MTS can register the remaining amount against the debt of the Fatush. The Fatush can implement the put-option only after covering the debt. According to sources informed about the transaction, by doing this the MTS helped its business partners and meantime its own interests. According to a source that is a competitor of K-Telecom company, the wish of the Fatush to receive money from the MTS is a political step aimed at increasing the possibility of the company’s general director have political preferences. Yirikyan was born in an Armenian family in Lebanon, and in 2001 he was in Karabakh and headed the K-telecom company established by the Fatush. The Cnews also informs that in 2004 the Armenian government recalled Armentel company’s license on exclusivity and gave it to K-Telecom. At that time rumors were circulated tht president of that time Robert Kocharyan and the minister of communication Andranik Manukyan had interests in that company. Currently the K-telecom is the only affiliated company of the MTS in the territory of CIS countries and the Russian company did not change the management after acquiring the actives. The source of the Cnews informs that this company has been spending more on philanthropy than any other affiliated companies of the MTS, and those moneys were raised from the Armenian community in Lebanon. An expert from the Russian Delovoy Express news company said to the Cnews, “K-Telecom does a lot of work in philanthropy and actively advertises this in media, which is a reason for rumors of Ralf Yirikyan’s political ambitions.” According to the information of Hayinfo, former president Robert Kocharyan may endorse the candidacy of Ralf Yirkiyan during the upcoming presidential elections in 2013. The Cnews writes that the MTS has refused to give any comments about Yirkiyan’s political ambitions. During the past two years Yirkiyan had to give comments to questions concerning politics. When commenting on the philanthropic activities of the company Yirikyan said, “The world, country and economy cannot develop by only grabbing the money into the pockets of people. They have to think about people too and give some part of the money back to them by implementing projects such as the ones the VivaCell is doing.” In answer to a question concerning the possible involvement in politics in 2010 he said, “There have been no politicians in our family and I do not want to be the first one either to bring politics into our family. It is not my profession, it is not what I want. I am working in communication and I will stay in the economic sector… I am not interested in politics; I do not understand much in politics.”
Some time later Yirkiyan refuted the rumors on possible appointment in the prime-minsiter’s position and said that if he received such offer he would certainly refuse. The Armenian and Russian media are publishing rumors about potential candidates of the Armenian president long before the presidential election, even when the official campaign for the parliamentary elections has not started. After the publication of the mentioned information by the Cnews the Armenian political circles were discussing the fact whether Yirikyan has citizenship of ten years in Armenia or no. We asked the spokesperson of the VivaCell whether Yirikyan has citizenship for ten years, but the latter promised to answer later, within the day. In an interview Yirikyan said that he moved to Armenia with his family in November 2001, lived and worked in Karabakh, later in Yerevan. Even there are scenarios, according to which this is a simple political manipulation to use Yirikyan as a tool before the elections. There are also rumors, according to which the Armenian authorities were the ones to order the publication in the Cnews in order to exclude the possibility of Yirikyan’s involvement in politics before it would happen. In all scenarios the name of Yirikyan was connected with the name of former president Robert Kocharyan in consideration of the fact that the MTS is a part of the Russian Sistema company, and former president Kocharyan is a board member of the Sistema.