YEREVAN. - Incumbent Yerevan mayor and mayoral candidate Taron Margaryan rules out the possibility that bribe could have been distributed in his pre-election headquarters.

He told the aforementioned to journalists after the meeting with Yerevan’s Kentron district residents on Friday, referring to the video released by Yelk bloc, which shows people queuing to get money in the headquarters.   

“Let the law enforcement authorities investigate, and if questions arise thereafter, I am ready to answer,” he said.

Margaryan also touched on the application submitted to the Central Electoral Commission (CEC) by Yelk bloc in order to declare invalid the participation of the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) in the election.“It is the power of the CEC: They will examine and come up with a statement. Our authorized representative will be there and our headquarters will [also] come up with a statement,” he said.  

From late Thursday to early Friday, mayoral candidate Nikol Pashinyan and Yelk bloc members demanded to open the doors of Taron Margaryan’s headquarters in Kurghinyan bystreet. According to them, there were ballots, money and voter lists there.

Earlier, journalist of Haykakan Zhamanak newspaper, Ana Zakharyan, informed that on her way home she noticed people coming out of the headquarters with already voted ballots and money in their hands. The journalist noticed 20,000 AMD. Several boys approached the journalist, took away her phone and later returned it with certain materials deleted. Pashinyan posted one of the videos remaining in Zakharyan’s phone, which the members of the headquarters hadn’t managed to delete.

Investigation into this incident is underway in Malatia police division.