Nikol Pashinyan is Distorting the Facts, Says Heritage Party

Heritage Party spokesperson Hovsep Khurshudyan, responding to Armenian National Congress (HAK) representative and candidate in the no. 7 electoral district for the upcoming parliamentary election Nikol Pashinyan’s statement earlier today, said that the latter is distorting the facts.

Recall, according to Pashinyan, the Heritage Party offered to withdraw its leader Raffi Hovannisian’s candidacy from the no. 7 electoral district if HAK withdrew its candidates from the no. 1, 4, 6, 9 and 12 electoral districts. This is so that opposition candidates would not be up against each other in the same constituency.

“Our offer was to back HAK candidates in 21 constituencies; Heritage Party candidates in 7; while in the remaining 13, we would back the Armenian Revolutionary Federation [Dashnaktsutyun, the other parliamentary opposition party] candidates.

“That is, HAK wanted us to leave only 2–3 candidates in the single-mandate constituencies so that our offer would be considered logical?” Khurshudyan asked.

Epress.am asked MP Armen Martirosyan, as the Heritage Party representative holding talks with HAK, to comment on Pashinyan’s statement that ahead of the registration of candidates, HAK suggested that the Heritage Party present its list of preferred electoral districts, but the latter suggesting moving the matter to election period, when candidates are already nominated.

Martirosyan said it was the Heritage Party, in fact, that began negotiations. According to him, HAK responded a few days late, when it was already time to nominate candidates and the Heritage Party was busy compiling its list of candidates under the system of proportional representation and there was no more time.

“Until Raffi Hovannisian was nominated for the no. 7 district, there was no such hysteria, which smelled like blackmail. This isn’t 2009, the Heritage Party shouldn’t be spoken to using such blackmail language,” he said.

Epress.am asked Nikol Pashinyan for comments following these latest statements, to which the opposition candidate said that he won’t be making any further comments concerning the Heritage Party and what he had to say he said at the press conference earlier today.