BANDIT STATE IS A MILD DESCRIPTION
Lragir
Feb 1 2008
Armenia
The head of Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s election headquarters Alexander
Arzumanyan stated in a news conference on February 1 the bandit state
is a mild description for the ruling elite, judging by the conduct
of the election campaign.
Alexander Arzumanyan summed up the first ten days of the election
campaign and said the election is rigged because there are obvious
illegalities. In particular, Alexander Arzumanyan says Prime Minister
Serge Sargsyan had instructed to set up a working commission in
December which is formally part of government but in reality works
for the political plans of Serge Sargsyan, receiving requests from
citizens to solve their material and financial problems and meeting
most of them. Alexander Arzumanyan presented several examples such
requests and said they count thousands.
Besides, he presented lists of personal information about voters and
persons in charge of them. In other words, people who are responsible
for the voting of the people included in the lists. Alexander
Arzumanyan presented a number of such lists which were taken from
Serge Sargsyan’s election office.
It allows Alexander Arzumanyan to state that the election has already
been rigged. Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s election office is likely to report
this information to the international observers. They are not going to
appeal to the Constitutional Court. Alexander Arzumanyan assured that
despite illegalities they will protect the votes of the society and
will win in the first round. Alexander Arzumanyan says the guarantee
is the popular movement which has emerged around Levon Ter-Petrosyan
and is gathering momentum. According to him, a dictatorship can be
overthrown through a powerful popular movement only. The fact that
immense percentage is ascribed to Serge Sargsyan and hardly 4 to 5
percent to Levon Ter-Petrosyan is typical of a dictatorship, where
the society is intimidated and does not tell their real opinion to
pollsters. Alexander Arzumanyan gave the example of Iraq, saying that
before the overthrow of Saddam’s regime his rating might have been 100
percent but later the real attitude of people toward him became known.
In answer to the question about their team’s attitude toward
the movements led by other opposition candidates, such as Arthur
Baghdasaryan who announces about a civil movement which supports him,
Alexander Arzumanyan says they have a normal attitude toward any
other movement and they intend to defeat the bandit regime through
this pan-national movement, as well as through the groups of this
systems in the election commissions and also through the laws of the
bandit system like they had defeated the Soviet dictatorship.