SARKISIAN WOOS PENSIONERS
By Karine Kalantarian

Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
May 3 2007

Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian sought to win over hundreds of thousands
of elderly Armenians on Thursday, saying that their plight will improve
"in the very near future" if they vote for his Republican Party (HHK).

"I am deeply convinced and want you to believe that in the near,
very near future there will be visible improvements," Sarkisian told
hundreds of pensioners in Yerevan. "Your pensions and salaries will
rise, you will have better healthcare, and your sons and grandsons will
slowly return from abroad, and you will stop being afraid of old age."

Nearly one quarter of the country’s 2.3 eligible voters are above
the retirement age, and their votes will be crucial for the outcome
of the May 12 parliamentary elections. The HHK underscored that fact
by gathering more than thousand of them in one of Yerevan’s largest
concert halls. In its election platform, the ruling party commits
itself to more than doubling the modest average amount of their
pensions to 33,500 drams ($94) within the next five years.

Sarkisian criticized other election contenders, presumably including
the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), the HHK’s
junior coalition partner, that have promised much steeper pension
hikes if they do well in the polls. He called such pledges "fairy
tales," again emphasizing that his party’s program is "realistic."

"Today one veteran’s bitterness or dire social condition may cast
shadow on our past victory and weaken our spirit of resistance,"
he said in a speech followed by a concert. "In this situation, some
political forces are coming forward and promising to raise your
pensions tenfold or hundredfold in order to win over you."

Incidentally, the event was organized by Armenia’s state pension fund
which is run by a senior member of the HHK. Some of the participants
interviewed by RFE/RL claimed to have been tricked into attending it.

Anna Hakobian, a 87-year-old veteran of the Second World War, said an
official from the fund only asked her and other pensioners by phone
to gather outside the Ministry of Social Security.

"We thought they wanted to give us aid," said Hakobian. "They should
have told us the truth … They duped us to come here and watch Serzh
Sarkisian give us false promises,"

"They phoned me but didn’t say who is inviting me here," said another
woman.

The meeting with pensioners was not the only election-related event
attended by Sarkisian on Thursday. He also met with students at Yerevan
State University and led HHK campaign rallies in the city’s southern
Erebuni and Shengavit districts later in the day.