CAMPAIGN ABOUT CAMPAIGN
Lusine Vasilyan

“Radiolur”
02.05.2012 19:02

The Civilitas Foundation held a debate today, featuring representatives
of political forces running in the elections to sum up the election
campaign. Representatives of Prosperous Armenia Party, the Armenian
Revolutionary Federation, the Heritage Party and the United Armenians
Party participated in the debate.

With just two days left before the end of the election campaign, there
is an impression that the campaign was about how the elections would
pass rather the challenges Armenia faces, the social and political
issues. It was a campaign about campaign. Do the participants of the
debates agree with the opinion?

Artashes Shahbazyan from the Armenian Revolutionary Federation said,
“Dashnaktsutyun remains one of the romantic forces, which is trying
to win the trust of the public by presenting its programs.”

The United Armenian Party entered the competition because of the
assertions that everything would be done to ensure the conduct of
free and fair elections. According to the representative of the
Party Hovhannes Hovhannisyan, the United Armenians do not have the
expectations that the public will follow a new force, although they
believed in it at the beginning of the campaign. It does not mean,
however, that the party will stop working.

“United Armenians will continue uniting people irrespective of the
fact whether they will enter the National Assembly or not,” he said.

For the Heritage Party it’s logical that the discussions on the
process of elections became the primary issue on pre-election agenda.

According to head of the Heritage faction Stepan Safaryan, the
development of the institute of elections is number one issue for
Armenia.

The Communists tried to lead the pre-election competition to an
ideological competition. However, they have not achieved any results
so far, member of the Communist Party Andranik Ghukasyan said.

Representative of the Prosperous Armenia Party Elinar Vardanyan said
it’s natural that the discussions mostly focus on the quality of
elections rather than platforms and debates.