DECISION 2013: HOVANNISIAN SAYS ‘COMMITTED’ TO STRUGGLE AFTER NO COMPROMISE WITH SARGSYAN
VOTE 2013 | 22.02.13 | 19:22
Raffi Hovannisian, the main opposition candidate in the Armenian
presidential election, again rallied thousands of supporters in
Yerevan on Friday to declare that he is committed to continuing a
fight for de jure presidency after all his offers of compromise have
been rejected by President Serzh Sargsyan.
Hovannisian, the head of the opposition Heritage party, gathered people
in Liberty Square to present details of his previous day’s closed-door
meeting with Sargsyan, whose election victory he is disputing.
The 53-year-old United States-born lawyer, who officially polled
close to 37 percent of the vote in the February 18 ballot, as opposed
to Sargsyan’s official count of about 59 percent, said all of his
offers made to Sargsyan, including concession of people’s victory,
appointment of new elections or a runoff, punishment of all election
falsifiers, and even holding fresh parliamentary elections according
to an all-proportional system of representation have been rejected.
Hovannisian, whose rally has been hailed by politicians representing
other parties, including Armenian Revolutionary Federation
representative Armen Rustamyan, declared the start of his struggle,
announcing that he will be organizing similar rallies in Armenian
towns on Saturday before returning to Liberty Square in Yerevan for
a big Sunday rally.
He also repeated his appeal to the people to remain peaceful and
abide by a constitutional means of reaching resolution.
Earlier in the day the Heritage Party leader held separate meetings
with U.S. Ambassador to Armenia John Heffern and Ambassador Heidi
Tagliavini, the head of the OSCE/ODIHR Election Observation Mission,
to discuss the post-election situation in Armenia. No other details
of the meetings have been reported.
In their earlier comments representatives of Sargsyan’s ruling
Republican Party of Armenia rejected claims by Hovannisian that his
votes had been stolen from him, insisting that the opposition leader
and his team have lost “the sense of reality”.
From: Baghdasarian