{"id":167755,"date":"2012-03-12T17:37:50","date_gmt":"2012-03-12T13:37:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epress.am\/?p=167755"},"modified":"2012-03-12T17:39:17","modified_gmt":"2012-03-12T13:39:17","slug":"hak-representative-levon-zurabyans-response-to-serzh-sargsyans-speech","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/2012\/03\/12\/hak-representative-levon-zurabyans-response-to-serzh-sargsyans-speech.html","title":{"rendered":"HAK Representative Levon Zurabyan&#8217;s Response to Serzh Sargsyan&#8217;s Speech"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Opposition representatives on Monday brushed aside Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan&#8217;s pre-election statements made Saturday at the 13th congress of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia, <span style=\"color: #000080;\"><strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.azatutyun.am\/content\/article\/24512895.html\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">RFE\/RL&#8217;s Armenian service<\/span><\/a><\/strong><\/span> reports.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis was an absolutely empty speech,\u201d said Levon Zurabyan (pictured) of the main opposition Armenian National Congress (HAK). \u201cTheir slogan is especially pathetic. This is the first case in the history of humankind where authorities who have been in power for four years call for change.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThey are the ones who have rigged elections, built this corrupt and kleptocratic system, destroyed popular faith in morality and made embezzlement of public resources the norm,\u201d Zurabyan told RFE\/RL\u2019s Armenian service (<strong><span style=\"color: #000080;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.azatutyun.am\/content\/article\/24512794.html\"><span style=\"color: #000080;\">Azatutyun.am<\/span><\/a><\/span><\/strong>) \u201cIt\u2019s amazing that they are now trying to teach us lessons of morality.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The HHK congress, which unanimously reelected Sargsyan as party chairperson, came less than a month before the official start of campaigning for the May 6 parliamentary elections. HHK representatives made clear earlier this year that the ruling party intends to win the vote by a landslide and at the same time ensure its proper conduct. The HAK and other opposition groups portray this as further proof that the authorities are planning massive vote rigging.<\/p>\n<p>Sargsyan slammed the opposition allegations in his speech. \u201cWe must hold good elections regardless of the fact that some are now not preparing for the elections but developing the technical capacity to portray them as falsified,\u201d 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>Opposition representatives on Monday brushed aside Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan&#8217;s pre-election statements made Saturday at the 13th congress of&#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":161696,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tstyn_error":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[12178,12533,11268],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167755"}],"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=167755"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/167755\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161696"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=167755"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=167755"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epress.am\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=167755"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}