Armenian National Congress Says How it Compiled Election Candidates’ List

Though the Armenian National Congress (HAK) aimed to back candidates in all of the country’s 41 constituencies, it will only be able to back candidates in 38 constituencies, HAK senior representative Levon Zurabyan informed the press on Thursday.

“I think, it’s not a bad result — we were short only three districts in order to be able to reach our goal in full,” he said.

On what was the basis for compiling the list of candidates contesting a parliamentary seat under the system of proportional representation, Zurabyan said:

“You know, the parties [in the opposition bloc] had delegated [HAK leader] Levon Ter-Petrossian to compile the list, which he did based on the results of consultations, political council discussions and inter-party consultations. That is, during all those discussions, certain standards, certain principles were developed, on the basis of which Ter-Petrossian eventually fulfilled the responsibility delegated to him.

“What played an important role was what mobilization resources those people [who made the list] had — recognition, their contribution over the years. There’s another important principle: the role of the pivotal parties in HAK — those are the People’s Party of Armenia, the Republic party and the Pan-Armenian National Movement (HHSh). After an inter-party compromise was made, one of the most important principles was put into place — that is, the candidates nominated according to the majoritarian system [upon which MPs are elected on an individual rather than a party basis] were given the advantage [in the proportional representation list].

“On the proportional representation list are those political prisoners who have been nominated on the majoritarian list, followed by those political prisoners not on that list. Following the group of political prisoners is the group of intellectuals, who, of course, should’ve been ahead of all of us. But we all understand that their presence on the list is symbolic, and, nevertheless, we considered it important that they be on the list. After this group, preference was given to youth and the list is completed by the leaders of the [Armenian National] Congress’ local branches. The list was created based on these principles.”