YEREVAN. – While the Armenian National Assembly Speaker is attempting to make the post-presidential-election situation in the country become an agenda issue in the parliament, opposition Heritage Party Chairman Raffi Hovannisian—who is declared runner-up to the winner, incumbent President Serzh Sargsyan, as a result of the presidential election on February 18, but who claims to be the real winner in the vote—is in a rush to head from one region to the other and to announce that they have won, Irates De Facto newspaper reports.              

“But, according to the information we have received, Hovannisian will keep his constituency active until the [capital city] Yerevan Council election [which is slated for May 5]. Our government sources claim that he was promised that he would become the Mayor of Yerevan, ‘if you succeed in winning the Council election.’     

But since the opposition, according to our information, will not run in this vote in consolidated fashion, Hovannisian fears that the overwhelming part of the votes he received [on February 18] will disappear.   

According to the same source, the [opposition] ARF [Dashnaktsutyun Party], PAP [Prosperous Armenia Party], and the ‘updated’ ANC [Armenian National Congress] will run separately in the Yerevan Council election. In this case, Hovannisian needs to prove that the votes he received [on February 18] are his own, and not that of the whole opposition,” Irates De Facto writes.