The activity of Yelk (Way Out) alliance is hindered in Vanadzor, the third largest city of Armenia.

In particular, unidentified persons tore up and poured black paint on the posters depicting Yelk alliance candidate Edmon Marukyan.

Another Yelk candidate, Hrant Ayvazyan, told Armenian News – NEWS.am that it is yet unknown who exactly did this, and why only Marukyan’s posters were damaged. But, according to him, the vandals can be supposed to have done this since these posters were the first to appear on Vanadzor streets. Ayvazyan also added that the posters were damaged only in the town of Spitak.

According to the candidate, the posters were painted at night but several surveillance cameras recorded the occurrence. Currently, these videos are examined by the police.

The main difficulty of working in the provinces is that people are not sufficiently aware of how the upcoming elections will be held, he noted.

Many of them don’t know that they will first have to elect a party, and only then a candidate. Ayvazyan has also got an impression that people in Vanadzor are passive and frightened, and thus don’t attend the meetings with the alliance candidates. In his words, the situation is even worse in rural communities: the community leaders promise bribes to residents in exchange for the agreement to vote for certain candidates.

Ayvazyan also added that the OSCE observers and members of the alliance visited Yelk headquarters in Vanandzor on Friday, where they were briefed on all these issues.