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Press Review


“Haykakan Zhamanak” says the start of campaigning for Armenia’s February 18 presidential elections was marked by “a number of miserable events.” “One of the presidential candidates, Raffi Hovannisian, spoke in front of about 100 people in Yerevan’s Aram Khachaturian Square and then strolled in the city a little,” writes the paper. “Another candidate, Andreas Ghukasian, sat down on a street in downtown Yerevan for a hunger strike. Former Prime Minister Hrant Bagratian visited Verin Artashat [village] for a meeting with voters, while the candidate of the Republican Party (HHK), Serzh Sarkisian, met with party activists behind the closed doors.”

“The first day of the presidential election campaign was sadder than one could imagine,” writes “168 Zham.” The paper singles out campaign ads aired by candidates, saying that they are exceedingly dull. “[In those ads] Paruyr Hayrikian recounts his past as a political prisoner, members of Raffi Hovannisian’s family tell about Raffi’s past, and [pop singer] Shushan Petrosian and other pop artists speak about Serzh Sarkisian,” it says, adding that only Bagratian’s video clips were quite “solid.”

“I don’t remember seeing such a boring election campaign before,” “Hraparak” editor-in-chief Armine Ohanian writes in a front-page commentary. She says some analysts think that the election aftermath should be far more exciting. “‘The country cannot remain in this state, the society cannot fail to spawn new forces and generate new processes,’ they say. On the one hand, a new opposition should emerge in the country … On the other hand, the forces remaining in the government need to regroup and restart in order to be competitive in the next elections.”

“Zhamanak” wonders why the Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) has announced a “restructuring” within its ranks at this juncture. “The BHK is preparing for [the presidential election of] 2018 or some emergency,” speculates the paper. “The question is who will generate that emergency. The BHK itself or another force on which the BHK plans to capitalize? It’s also possible that the BHK is trying to take advantage of Serzh Sarkisian’s pre-election busyness and reverse losses from blows which it received before the pre-election situation.”

(Aghasi Yenokian)
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