Head of Ter-Petrosian’s pre-election staff accuses the Armenian media
and believes that the result of the surveys `cast a shadow on the
reputation of Gallup’

February 1, 2008

Yerevan /Mediamax/. Head of the pre-election staff of the presidential
candidate Levon Ter-Petrosian Aleksandr Arzumanian stated in Yerevan
today that `Levon Ter-Petrosian is worth of 1890 Serzh Sarkisians’.

Mediamax reports that, speaking at a news conference in Yerevan today,
Aleksandr Arzumanian expressed confidence that their candidate will win
in the very first round of the presidential elections.

According to him, `the whole state apparatus, the press and the
electronic media, as well as the General Prosecutor’s Office of Armenia
serve to the process of regeneration of the ruling regime’.

Commenting on the refusal of Levon Ter-Petrosian to participate in a
TV-interview, Aleksandr Arzumanian stated that `all the TV-channels of
the country are controlled by a single center and fulfill an order ` to
drive our candidate out of his wits and to transfer the controversy
into another dimension’.

The Head of the pre-election headquarter of Ter-Petrosian allowed
himself today tactless statements against journalists, present at the
news conference, and the TV-channels, which allegedly `obey 2-3 owners
and ask questions concocted beforehand and print distorted materials’.

Aleksandr Arzumanian informed that `we have collected many facts on
violation of the Electoral Code of Armenia by the candidate from the
ruling party, which will be presented to the international observation
missions in the nearest future’.

Commenting on the results of the latest sociological poll of Gallup,
according to which Levon Ter-Petrosian may claim to gain only 5% of the
electors’ votes, Aleksandr Arzumanian stated that `in such totalitarian
countries as Armenia the activity of sociological institutions is quite
doubtful and casts a shadow on the reputation of such authority
organizations, as Gallup’.