FIRST STAGE OF PRE-ELECTION CAMPAIGN FINISHED

PanARMENIAN.Net - There are no names in the list which are not familiar to the electors. For the first time representatives of Diaspora will also take part in the elections. The former foreign minister of Armenia Raffi Hovhannesyan, moved from the USA to Armenia in 1991, has also presented an application for participation in the elections. He may not be registered as a contender because the Armenian legislation requires that the contender is a citizen of Armenia during the last 10 years. Hovhannesyan has asked an Armenian citizenship 11 years ago. But he received the passport only in 1998. If the former U.S. citizen is allowed to participate in the elections, the political situation may change. As of today, the rating of Raffi Hovannesyan is rather high. The sociological researches show that he is inferior only to Robert Kocharian.

According to the sociological inquiries, among the 5 most popular contenders are also the head of the “National State” party Artashes Geghamyan, head of the People’s party Stepan Demirchyan and the Chairman of the political council of the “Republican” party Aram Sarkisyan. Each of them has the right to become the main rival of the acting President.

Artashes Geghamyan controls one of the biggest parliament factions. He has got the Soviet political training. He was the Mayor of Yerevan, and has done private business. During the previous Presidential elections he was the 4th. Has a rather stable electorate, which may increase this time if other oppositional parties support him. We can assure that Geghamyan will participate in the elections even if the partners of the oppositional alliance which has not been formed finally up to now decide to back another candidate.

Stepan Demirchyan and Aram Sarkisyan do not rule out the possibility of withdrawing their candidatures, if their partners agree upon a single candidate. In case if both them go to elections separately, the chances of each of them become less.

Then the first secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party Vladimir Darbinyan and the Leader of the National-Democratic Union Vazgen Manukyan. For the communist leader these elections will be the first, while Manukyan has a big experience in this issue. There is only one argument for him to become the united candidate of the opposition. It is his success as a united candidate in the elections of 1996, when he got more than 40 percent of votes and nearly became President. According to the supporters of Vazgen Manukyan, he couldn’t become it only because of the falsifications organized by the command of the then President Levon Ter-Petrosyan. The leader of national-democrats is well-known in the West and also in Moscow. But it is evident that the nowadays Manukyan and Manukyan of 1998 differ from each other a lot. His hour of triumph seems to be in the past. It is evident that without the support of other representatives of the oppositional alliance he will have no success. As far as Darbinyan is concerned, he will continue the battle not depending on the decision of the oppositional parties.

It will have sense to speak about the other candidates only in case if one of them manages to unite around him the other outsiders. It is not excluded that several local alliances will be formed which may influence the results of the voting. For the moment, judging from the results of the sociological researches, the gap between the leaders of the pre-election campaign and its other participants is too big to take them into consideration.