HOVHANNESIAN: I WILL GO ALL THE WAY
Yerkir.am
January 31, 2008
"I am not going do drop out of the race. I will go all the way," ARF
presidential candidate Vahan Hovhannesian said at a news conference
held at the ARF Bureau on January 30.
He said that in many regions of Armenia, and especially in northern
regions, there are rumors that Hovhannesian is going to drop out and
endorse the prime minister.
"This is a lie. If there is a run-off, I will not endorse anybody
because I will be in the run-off," Hovhannesian added.
He said that many issues emerge during his meetings in both Yerevan and
the regions. He also spoke about anti-ARF movies shown on TV. "There
are movies produced in the Soviet era. These movies are shown during
every election.
This may be good because it indicates that they have nothing else
for anti-ARF propaganda," he said.
He also said that there is an organizational issue, which mostly is
apparent in villages. "There are concerns in regions that village
heads are going to force people to vote openly. We will not let this
happen. We should tell our people that they should not believe that
their votes can be monitored. This is a lie, we will do our best but
voters should not give way to the pressures from bureaucrats."
Hovhannessian said that over 170,000 people have signed contracts
with him.
"This means we are approaching the number of the votes we received
in the parliamentary election, and I think we will add more votes to
this number," he said. He said that there were cases when some people
had attempted to present fake contracts but the people at election
headquarters have thwarted such attempts.