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'I TREAT DRINKING AS NORMAL': PM COMES CLEAN ON WHETHER HE WAS DRUNK WHILE MAKING SPEECH
epress.am
11.17.2011
RA Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan's grandfather advised never to make
friends with people who don't drink. The prime minister conveyed these
words to reporters after the question and answer period in parliament
on Wednesday.
Recall, a video (see below) of the PM making a speech Friday at a
public event celebrating youth while seemingly drunk went viral in
the Armenian blogosphere and social networking sites. Many questioned
whether he was indeed drunk.
"That's why I approach drinking as normal; second, real technical
issues arose during that event. Our team, which had prepared the event,
hadn't taken into consideration that such a technical issue could
arise, because the stage was directly in front of our seating area
and all the equipment and speakers were far. So when I began to talk,
the feedback was so strong and was echoing back to me that I simply
couldn't hear what sentences I was saying and that, of course, was
a drawback our team didn't anticipate. They hadn't considered that
there could be such a problem," he explained.
Tigran Sargsyan said that never has such a thing happened in all his
22 years of making public political speeches - and this was one lesson
he's going to learn.
"To be honest, the commotion that resulted was incomprehensible to me.
Thousands of people participated in that event, and I hadn't gone
alone to the event; there were hundreds present; if I was inebriated,
all would see and there was nothing to hide. But now everyone's
saying so what, he was drinking, let him say he was drinking; but
now those people who were with me and who saw that I wasn't drunk -
wouldn't they say that the prime minister is lying? Reporters went
and asked everyone in the world if I was or wasn't drunk - [including]
those people who were seated next to me. Regretfully, I wasn't drunk,"
he said.
Asked whether he was going to sue anyone for the technical problems,
the PM said there's no point in fishing for a conspiracy. He expressed
a conviction that there's no such plot and again assured that they
will take into account the experience.
epress.am
11.17.2011
RA Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan's grandfather advised never to make
friends with people who don't drink. The prime minister conveyed these
words to reporters after the question and answer period in parliament
on Wednesday.
Recall, a video (see below) of the PM making a speech Friday at a
public event celebrating youth while seemingly drunk went viral in
the Armenian blogosphere and social networking sites. Many questioned
whether he was indeed drunk.
"That's why I approach drinking as normal; second, real technical
issues arose during that event. Our team, which had prepared the event,
hadn't taken into consideration that such a technical issue could
arise, because the stage was directly in front of our seating area
and all the equipment and speakers were far. So when I began to talk,
the feedback was so strong and was echoing back to me that I simply
couldn't hear what sentences I was saying and that, of course, was
a drawback our team didn't anticipate. They hadn't considered that
there could be such a problem," he explained.
Tigran Sargsyan said that never has such a thing happened in all his
22 years of making public political speeches - and this was one lesson
he's going to learn.
"To be honest, the commotion that resulted was incomprehensible to me.
Thousands of people participated in that event, and I hadn't gone
alone to the event; there were hundreds present; if I was inebriated,
all would see and there was nothing to hide. But now everyone's
saying so what, he was drinking, let him say he was drinking; but
now those people who were with me and who saw that I wasn't drunk -
wouldn't they say that the prime minister is lying? Reporters went
and asked everyone in the world if I was or wasn't drunk - [including]
those people who were seated next to me. Regretfully, I wasn't drunk,"
he said.
Asked whether he was going to sue anyone for the technical problems,
the PM said there's no point in fishing for a conspiracy. He expressed
a conviction that there's no such plot and again assured that they
will take into account the experience.