{"id":159606,"date":"2012-02-07T16:25:36","date_gmt":"2012-02-07T12:25:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/?p=159606"},"modified":"2012-02-07T16:27:25","modified_gmt":"2012-02-07T12:27:25","slug":"what-does-it-mean-dont-bother-to-vote-asks-opposition-party-leader","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2012\/02\/07\/what-does-it-mean-dont-bother-to-vote-asks-opposition-party-leader.html","title":{"rendered":"&#8216;What Does It Mean, Don&#8217;t Bother to Vote?&#8217; Asks Opposition Party Leader"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Assurances that the elections will be free, fair and transparent shouldn&#8217;t be taken seriously, since those behind the previous fraudulent elections were never held accountable, said People&#8217;s Party of Armenia leader Stepan Demirchyan, speaking to reporters in Yerevan today.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;m not speaking only about [the] 2008 [presidential election]. Do you remember, also in 2003, they were demanding \u2014 the Council of Europe was also demanding \u2014 to hold those who rigged [the election] accountable,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<p>The opposition member believes that moving to a 100% proportional ballot is the right decision for stabilizing Armenia&#8217;s political system, though his party is not, on principle, against the majority system. &#8220;This doesn&#8217;t mean that we&#8217;ll be insured against all types of fraud, but it will be a step in the right direction.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Demirchyan also urged everyone to vote. &#8220;What does it mean, don&#8217;t bother or there&#8217;s no point in voting, it&#8217;s the same, they&#8217;ll be rigged anyway? This process will encourage also the public to be more [politically] active, which will lead to serious reform. We must continue the struggle, which at this stage assumes voting in the parliamentary elections.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Weighing in on the Armenian National Congress candidate list (of which his party is a member), he reminded the press that it&#8217;s not yet ready, but once it is, the public will be informed.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;At the end of February, this issue will be clarified. As for reports that there are disagreements in the [Armenian National] Congress regarding these lists, you know, comprising a list is a very serious and difficult task, especially when there are more than 10 parties in a single bloc. It&#8217;s hard, but solvable,&#8221; he said.<\/p>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;What does it mean, don&#8217;t bother or there&#8217;s no point in voting, it&#8217;s the same, they&#8217;ll be rigged anyway?&#8221; asked People&#8217;s Party of Armenia leader Stepan Demirchyan.<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on get_the_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":159577,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159606"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159606"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159606\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159577"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159606"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159606"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159606"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}