YEREVAN. - Deputy of Armenia’s Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) faction, Hakob Hakobyan, considers threat as a pre-election process.

Hakobyan, who has held mandate in the parliament for about twenty years, told the aforementioned to Armenian News – NEWS.am, noting that the candidates can allow themselves everything according to their taste and at their discretion during the pre-election stage, the voter being free to exercise his right to free expression of will only in the voting booth where he is alone.

 

“Election consists of different stages: pre-electoral, electoral and post-electoral. In the first stage each candidate can carry out all the actions at his own discretion and in accordance with his taste, but the voting is confidential in order to bring the result of all these activities to naught, since when entering the voting booth the voter should have his form of self-expression,” he said. 

Asked whether the mentioned “pre-election processes,” which the candidates carry out at their own discretion—abuse of administrative resources, “guided” voting, threats to employees—are acceptable to him, Hakobyan said: “The action that you described could not have an impact. I reiterate: each campaign in the pre-election process has its own way to start. Threat is a pre-election process, which can never impact the election results. Why never? Because our election was organized so that no pre-election process could impact the election results.”

The deputy doesn’t condemn the “pre-election processes” carried out by the candidates at their own discretion—which often included violations of the Constitution and Electoral Code—since he strongly believes that a deputy anyway makes it to the parliament thanks to the collected votes. Hakobyan doesn’t condemn the recently published scandalous recording on gathering votes in favor of RPA deputy, SAS Group President Artak Sargsyan either.

According to the election results, Hakobyan comes second in Gegharkunik province.