FORMER MINISTER HEADS ARMENIAN EX-PRESIDENT’S ELECTION HQS

Interfax
Jan 7 2008
Russia

Yerevan, 7 January: Former Foreign Minister Aleksandr Arzumanyan has
headed the election headquarters of an Armenian presidential hopeful,
former Armenian President Levon Ter-Petrosyan, the civil initiative
group supporting Ter-Petrosyan’s candidacy [in the 19 February
presidential election] told Interfax news agency on Monday [7 January].

Arzumanyan has given a written undertaking not to leave Armenia as
part of criminal proceedings into a money-laundering case. In September
2007 he was released from the remand facility of the National Security
Service, where he had stayed four months.

Arzumanyan was foreign minister in the government of the Armenian
Pan-National Movement led by Ter-Petrosyan. The former foreign minister
is the founder of the opposition Civic Disobedience movement. Some
opposition forces said the former foreign minister was a political
prisoner.

The office of the initiative group said that Ter-Petrosyan’s election
headquarters had been set up in all regions of the republic.

Nine people are going to contest Armenian presidency. They are the
former Armenian parliament speaker and leader of the Orinats Yerkir
(Law-Governed Country) Party, Artur Baghdasaryan; the prime minister of
the republic and leader of the [ruling] Republican Party of Armenia,
Serzh Sargsyan; the chairperson of the opposition National Democratic
Union, Vazgen Manukyan; the deputy parliament speaker and member of
the bureau of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation – Dashnaktsutyun,
Vahan Hovhannisyan; the first Armenian president, Levon Ter-Petrosyan;
the leader of the National Unity Party, Artashes Geghamyan; the
leader of the People’s Party, Tigran Karapetyan; the leader of the
National Solidarity Party, Aram Harutyunyan; and the former aide
of the president of the self-declared Nagornyy Karabakh republic,
Arman Melikyan.