– Why does the RPA chair Serzh Sargsyan participate in the pre-election campaign by himself? Doesn’t your party have someone, who would have trust among people to talk to them?
– The RPA conducts rallies in the regions on a daily basis with its campaign groups. The RA President and the RPA chair Serzh Sargsyan leads these rallies mostly in the central locations. We may say that as the head of the party he’s on the peak of our campaign iceberg. He’s the only the person, who has the right to present to the people the actual situation in our country and what projects and plans the party has for the next five years. He has that right because he’s not only the head of the party but also the President of the country.
– Your coalition partner, the Prosperous Armenia acts in the role of the opposition. Is this a special tactics developed by the government to take away part of the opposition votes or the PA is actually your opponent?
– There are a few people in the PA, who speak more in the role of the opposition than they should. For example, among these people I can mention Vardan Oskanyan and others. But when you are in the coalition and take on a governmental lever then it can be considered as self-criticism. On the other hand it is not self-criticism and more like anti-propaganda. In this case there is a moral matter here. You should either deflect from the coalition or if you are staying you should respect the rules and principles of the coalition. And as during the campaign the emotions get a little tenser you should criticize someone else by reflex in order to defend yourself. And they are criticizing the most powerful party as you have noticed. And that party is the RPA.
– It’s known that the majority of the Armenian communities are led by RPA members. It means that you have very powerful levers to influence the election results. Especially in the villages it’s going to be easy because it will be possible to vote instead of the ones, who are absent from the communities. Under these circumstances unequal conditions are created especially for the opposition parties.
– I wouldn’t like to call it an administrative lever as after all the constituents of these mayors are the Armenian people, the Armenian voters. These people are still supporters of the RPA, aren’t they? We meet them, remind them of what we have done and tell them what we are going to do. We are not giving them any unrealistic promises. We are sure that our works during the past five years if not excellent then are at a satisfactory level, which is enough to still receive the trust and credit of the voters. The rest of the political parties, which curse and swear us, are much weaker.
– The ANC has mostly been criticizing the RPA and Serzh Sargsyan. If this opposition force is weak and has no danger to the government then why do the heads of communities, the majority of which are RPA members, instruct the voters not to participate in the ANC rallies unless they want to be fired from work?
– I don’t know any such case. It is the constitutional right of the people to participate in rallies and demonstrations. And if someone does so he will neither be fired nor punished. We live in a free country. Of course, I don’t mean the European criteria but each election cycle gets closer to these standards. And as now we have certain angles of cooperation with Europe and Europe says when the elections proceed in a more transparent and free manner they will get to establish tighter ties with us. And we do our best to approach our elections to these standards.
– The RPA strictly criticized Vardan Oskanyan when he said that the coalition had a formal character. But in a way, he’s right because in the coalition the decision-maker is the RPA.
– If the party has four ministers, significant number of MPs in the parliament, how can the coalition be a formal structure? It is part of the government. Oskanyan may be a good diplomat but his approaches in the internal politics, social-economic issues are slightly different.
– In that case, why do Oskanyan and his supporters slam the government?
– All the parties are trying to gain the voters’ ballots; they make statements to make the people believe them. I am for the competition but I say this competition should be done in a civilized manner. The bidding parties shouldn’t insult each other. Even Gagik Tsarukyan got insulted about the accusations that he’s a formal person and the coalition is formal. Does it turn out that they had to follow a direction? Vardan Oskanyan is wrong. The coalition has never been formal. Even till now it is not formal. Such statements were made during the pre-election campaign. Or if you have been walking after someone for five years how can the people trust you now and how can they entrust the levers of powers? It means that Oskanyan was incorrectly commenting and harming the reputation of their own party. That is the reason why Tsarukyan corrected him by saying that the coalition was not formal.
– During the past two years Serzh Sargsyan fired top state officials, the names of which were connected with criminal circles. Besides, he stated that the state apparatus should be separated from the business sector. However, the majority of these people were included in the RPA list. This means that the RPA propaganda on change is not being practically applied. Don’t you agree that is merely a meaningless slogan?
– We are the way we are. We mean Armenia and the society. If the society needs to see a businessman in the parliament we can’t do anything about that.
– There has always been an opinion that in the RPA elite the relations are very smooth. There is tension especially between Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan and the head of your campaign Hovik Abrahamyan. And they either fortify their positions in relations to each other or recede. Is this done to keep the balance between the party?
– The journalists ask me this question very often. There are no wings within the RPA. It’s clear that the top of the pyramid is headed by the President. But we also have strong leaders and each of them is heading specific sectors. The Prime Minister has his own approaches about the economic and financial vision of the country. Abrahamyan is an experienced businessman and today heads the RPA campaign office. It means that each leader has his sector and from the side it always seems that one of them prevails over the other. There is no such thing. If we didn’t have a strong leader it might be possible that certain wings would be originated within the party. But Sargsyan is so strong that no one will attempt to shift from the common line. We value the regulating role of our leader. And it’s no accident that he personally participates in the main campaign events of the party.