I am ready to debate with all the mayoral candidates, but I will not give preference to any power. Hayk Marutyan, the mayoral candidate of the “My Step” bloc, said this during the campaign on September 17, commenting on the invitation to the debate by Naira Zohrabyan, the mayoral candidate of PAP.

He mentioned that he has 11 opponents. “I will go to the debate with great love, but with all opponents. I will not go to a separate debate with any of the 11 candidates. Of course, at the same time, why should I prefer one? What law is that? It will not be true for the other candidates either. All candidates are equal to me. I call on all 21 candidates to gather, debate, talk, in any format,” said Marutyan.

He noted that he does not avoid giving interviews to the media, he just “doesn’t have enough time”. “I don’t avoid it, I don’t have enough time. Since the pre-election process is very short, we only have 12 days and 12 administrative districts, I dedicate every day to one administrative district,” he said.

As for Naira Zohrabyan’s statement that Robert Kocharyan’s and Serzh Sargsyan’s relatives are included in the list of “My Step” bloc, Hayk Marutyan responded. “Until yesterday, I was not even interested in who is whose relative, because we accept people based on their deeds, not blood ties. But since that announcement was made yesterday, I instructed the boys to understand what the problem is.”

He noted that the name of Mikael Minasyan’s uncle is Mikael Hasratyan, and “we have a person with the same last name on the list, but he is a completely different person.” “In other words, what was said is not true. Asatsi is a relative of Zori Balayan on the list. Our guys talked to Zori Balayan’s son. It turned out that we have a person with the surname Balayan, who has nothing to do with Zori Balayan, his son confirmed it. In other words, this is complete misinformation. However, regardless of everything, we accept people for their ideas and visions,” he said.

Earlier, a candidate for mayor of Yerevan of the “Prosperous Armenia” party Naira Zohrabyan had publicly invited  Hayk Marutyan of the debate, complaining that “we are inviting a debate, he is running away, because what is he going to talk about, what is he going to debate with me on the political platform?” “He is afraid, and now I say: I am a man, I invite you to a debate, come without Nikol Pashinyan, let’s see how you will solve Yerevan’s problems or is it easy to play mayor under Pashinyan’s back,” he said.