{"id":162753,"date":"2012-02-20T11:01:12","date_gmt":"2012-02-20T07:01:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/?p=162753"},"modified":"2012-02-20T11:31:07","modified_gmt":"2012-02-20T07:31:07","slug":"on-anniversary-of-2008-presidential-election-activists-distributed-bribes-in-yerevan","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2012\/02\/20\/on-anniversary-of-2008-presidential-election-activists-distributed-bribes-in-yerevan.html","title":{"rendered":"On Anniversary of 2008 Presidential Election, Activists Distributed &#8216;Bribes&#8217; in Yerevan"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Armenian National Congress (HAK) activists on Sunday recalled the Feb. 19, 2008 presidential election by marching through the streets of Yerevan and distributing &#8220;banknotes,&#8221; drawing attention to the practice of buying votes.<\/p>\n<p>The banknotes were replicas of the 5,000 Armenian dram note; however, Armenian poet Hovhannes Tumanyan&#8217;s image was replaced with the image of a bearded Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan. According to the young activists, they wanted to show that the presidential election 4 years ago was rigged and that even today, votes can be bought (referring to the Feb. 12 mayoral elections in Hrazdan in which <span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/en\/2012\/02\/13\/final-results-incumbent-mayor-beats-opposition-candidate-sasun-mikaelyan-in-hrazdan-elections.html\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">residents claimed<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/span> 5,000 drams were handed out to those who voted).<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/1akcia1.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-162703\" title=\"1akcia\" src=\"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/1akcia1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"450\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/epress.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/1akcia1.jpg 450w, https:\/\/epress.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/1akcia1-300x233.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/5000.drams_.banknote.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-162771 aligncenter\" title=\"5000.drams.banknote\" src=\"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/5000.drams_.banknote.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"222\" srcset=\"https:\/\/epress.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/5000.drams_.banknote.jpg 400w, https:\/\/epress.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/5000.drams_.banknote-300x166.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 400px) 100vw, 400px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><em>Image (above) used with permission and retrieved from Sevak Kirakosyan&#8217;s Facebook page<\/em><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Many passers-by were humored; there were people who considered 5,000 to be too little, while others refused to sell their vote. Armenia can no longer have another fraudulent election; this is already an issue of our existence, our independence, and this time we have to be responsible for our vote at all costs,&#8221; said one of the young activists, Areg Gevorgyan, speaking to Epress.am and referring to the upcoming parliamentary election.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/3akcia.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-162704\" title=\"3akcia\" src=\"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/3akcia.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"450\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/epress.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/3akcia.jpg 450w, https:\/\/epress.am\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/02\/3akcia-300x233.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 450px) 100vw, 450px\" \/><\/a><\/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>Armenian National Congress (HAK) activists on Sunday recalled the Feb. 19, 2008 presidential election by marching through the streets of Yerevan and&#8230;<!-- 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":162701,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[38322,10341,30141,18412,19076,29797,34802],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162753"}],"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=162753"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/162753\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/162701"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=162753"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=162753"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=162753"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}