Epress.am News from Armenia
Nominated in the no. 12 electoral district for the upcoming parliamentary election, Tigran Ter-Petrossian (pictured), backed by the Armenian National Congress (HAK) and the nephew of HAK leader Levon Ter-Petrossian, in conversation with Epress.am, confirmed that he met with Mher Sedrakyan, the Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) candidate nominated in the no. 13 district.
According to Ter-Petrossian, the meeting took place upon Sedrakyan’s initiative.
“I found out from the press that there are attempts to portray our meeting as secret, and some began to make speculations around that, but the meeting was open and I never intended to hide this fact whatsoever. The rest are women’s gossip, which to comment on wouldn’t be serious,” he said.
In the opposition candidate’s opinion, since the elections in Erebuni (where no. 12 and 13 constituencies are located) have always been guided by scandalous incidents, at their meeting he spoke with Sedrakyan about ruling out possible electoral fraud in Erebuni.
“Furthermore, at the meeting I suggested Mher Sedrakyan organize one more meeting — with the heads of the regional branches of the other political parties operating in Erebuni,” he said.
Note, in conversation with the online version of local daily Aravot, Sedrakyan also confirmed the news of their meeting, saying that he told Ter-Petrossian the following: “I said, let’s have normal elections this time, otherwise always bad things have been written about Erebuni. We’ve grown up already — let’s at least have normal elections for once, so there isn’t any unnecessary talk afterwards.”
Ter-Petrossian informed Epress.am that he welcomes the move to stamp out electoral fraud, but time will tell what will happen.
The HAK candidate also mentioned that he considers all the candidates nominated in his district to be his competitors, and he doesn’t class them as main or secondary opponents.
Recall, also nominated in this district are Anahit Bakhshyan (Heritage Party), Lyova Khachatryan (Prosperous Armenia Party), Karlen Gevorgyan (Armenian Revolutionary Federation, or Dashnaktsutyun), Ruben Masumyan (Rule of Law, or Orinats Yerkir), and journalist Gohar Veziryan (no party affiliation).
Asked whether having several opposition candidates in the same district doesn’t give the advantage to ruling party candidates, Tigran Ter-Petrossian said: “I think that with the several opposition candidates nominated in this electoral district together we will fight fraud both during the campaign period and on election day.”