YEREVAN. – Two days age, Armenia’s opposition Heritage Party leader, former FM Raffi Hovannisian—who is declared runner-up to the winner, incumbent President Serzh Sargsyan, as a result of the presidential election that was conducted on February 18, but who claims to be the real winner in the vote and who declared a hunger strike on March 10 at capital city Yerevan’s Liberty Square—expressed yet another “bright idea” that, on March 1, 2008, the Heritage members as if had stood in the middle of the people and the police, in capital city Yerevan, and not allowed for bloodshed. Social-Democratic Hnchakyan Party (SDHP) member Gurgen Yeghiazaryan stated this during a press conference on Thursday.     

“Those Heritage members should have been several thousand in order to be able to stand between the troops, the people, and the opposition,” Yeghiazaryan said, and added that even though Heritage’s then MP Armen Martirosyan was injured at the time, this should not be exploited several years after the event.     

“He [that is, Hovannisian] is fasting for a few days, [and] his friends already are suggesting why the Catholicos is not coming to urge [him] to end his fasting.

“The Church and the state have been independent in the three republics of Armenia, whereas Raffi Hovannisian stated two days ago that the Catholicos, as if, should say that the Church is independent from the state,” Gurgen Yeghiazaryan noted.       

Photo by Arsen Sargsyan/NEWS.am