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FORCE WON'T BE USED IN COLLISION BETWEEN ARMENIAN AUTHORITIES AND HOVANNISIAN, EXPERT SAYS
YEREVAN, February 22. /ARKA/. There will be no forceful conflict
between the authorities and the supporters of Raffi Hovannisian,
Director of Caucasus Institute, political analyst Alexander Iskandaryan
said as quoted by Novosti-Armenia.
According to the expert, the 2008 situation will not re-occur.
"Levon Ter-Petrosyan (the first president of Armenia) was not visiting
Serzh Sargsyan on February 21, 2008, and not one, two or five thousand,
but a hundred thousand were standing on the streets at that time",
the political analyst said in his interview to Novosti-Armenia.
"I think that Mr Hovannisian has no potential of promoting to a scale
of rallies like the one led to March 1, 2008", Iskandaryan said.
The expert also said he expected protests would be held after the
elections. Yet, he would not call them "mass protests", he said.
"We had, as you remember, "president-elect" Vazgen Manukyan,
"president-elect" Karen Demirchyan, in 2008 we had "president-elect"
Levon Ter-Petrosyan, now we have "president-elect" Raffi Hovannisian.
It's OK, it is a part of political tradition in Armenia - the defeated
candidate does calls the elections "rigged" and declares himself a
winner", Iskandaryan said.
Opposition candidate Raffi Hovannisian, who officially was the
runner-up in the February 18 presidential elections in Armenia, dispute
the outcome of the vote and will be holding a protest meeting At the
Liberty Square Friday, 17:00.
According to preliminary results of the elections, Armenia's incumbent
president Serzh Sargsyan won re-election Monday with 861,378 votes
or 58.64%. His main challenger Raffi Hovannisian polled 36.74% or
539,674 votes. -0-
YEREVAN, February 22. /ARKA/. There will be no forceful conflict
between the authorities and the supporters of Raffi Hovannisian,
Director of Caucasus Institute, political analyst Alexander Iskandaryan
said as quoted by Novosti-Armenia.
According to the expert, the 2008 situation will not re-occur.
"Levon Ter-Petrosyan (the first president of Armenia) was not visiting
Serzh Sargsyan on February 21, 2008, and not one, two or five thousand,
but a hundred thousand were standing on the streets at that time",
the political analyst said in his interview to Novosti-Armenia.
"I think that Mr Hovannisian has no potential of promoting to a scale
of rallies like the one led to March 1, 2008", Iskandaryan said.
The expert also said he expected protests would be held after the
elections. Yet, he would not call them "mass protests", he said.
"We had, as you remember, "president-elect" Vazgen Manukyan,
"president-elect" Karen Demirchyan, in 2008 we had "president-elect"
Levon Ter-Petrosyan, now we have "president-elect" Raffi Hovannisian.
It's OK, it is a part of political tradition in Armenia - the defeated
candidate does calls the elections "rigged" and declares himself a
winner", Iskandaryan said.
Opposition candidate Raffi Hovannisian, who officially was the
runner-up in the February 18 presidential elections in Armenia, dispute
the outcome of the vote and will be holding a protest meeting At the
Liberty Square Friday, 17:00.
According to preliminary results of the elections, Armenia's incumbent
president Serzh Sargsyan won re-election Monday with 861,378 votes
or 58.64%. His main challenger Raffi Hovannisian polled 36.74% or
539,674 votes. -0-