Armenia’s CEC to give more time to potential presidential candidates to pay election pledge

YEREVAN, January 8. /ARKA/. The potential candidates for Armenia’s president will have some more time to pay the election pledge, the head of Armenia’s Central Electoral Commission (CEC) Tigran Mukuchyan said in the interview with Yerkir Media TV channel on Sunday.

According to him, only seven out of 15 citizens paid an 8-million-dram election pledge (nearly 20,000 dollars), who had applied to the Central Electoral Commission for their candidacy registration. Another citizen submitted 1000-dram payment receipt (2.5 dollars). 

“The Central Electoral Commission was accepting the documents from citizens till January 4, 6 p.m. Citizens can register from 4 to 14 January, and the Commission evaluates all the submitted applications during this period. In case there are some inaccuracies in the documents, the Commission will inform the applicants on that giving 48 hours for the necessary corrections,” Mukuchyan said.

He also spoke about some interesting cases during the application submission process. For example, one citizen asked the Commission to let him pay 50,000 drams (about 124 dollars) in the election pledge instead of 8 million. 

Mukuchyan noted an authorized representative of one of the potential candidates had also submitted his application for the registration. 

 “We faced some interesting situation: one of the citizens who  submitted documents was an authorized representative of another citizen,” Mukuchyan clarified, Novosti-Armenia reports.

Fifteen citizens submitted their documents to the Central Electoral Commission of Armenia to register as presidential candidates.

The day of the application deadline was last Friday, 6 p.m. local time (the same as Moscow time). The registration process opened January 4 and will end on January 14. The election campaign is to be kicked off on January 21 and end on February 16, 24:00 (12 a.m.). The presidential elections will be held on February 18.

The incumbent president, Serzh Sargsyan, is the main favorite in the upcoming presidential race. The ruling Republican Party of Armenia officially nominated Sargsyan on December 15. The motto of the incumbent’s election campaign is “Towards secure Armenia.”

Sargsyan’s opponents will be the former prime minister of Armenia and Freedom party leader Hrant Bagratyan, the former foreign minister and Heritage party leader Raffi Hovhannisian, the famous dissident in the Soviet times, Union for National self-determination party leader Paruyr Hayrikyan. Narine Mkrtchyan, the chief of the National press club, the professor at Armenian State Pedagogical University after Khachatur Abovyan, is the first woman candidate to join the race. 

The documents were also submitted by the president of Armenian Combat Karate Kobudo National Federation Taron Abrahamyan, the leader of National Consent party Aram Harutyunyan, former foreign minister of Karabakh Arman Meliqyan, political scientist Andrias Ghukasyan, specialist in epos Vardan Sedrakyan, Kashatagh NGO chairman Robert Simonyan, pensioner Pavlik Sargsyan, unemployed Robert Aharonyan and Mher Hayrapetyan. 

Another potential candidate, Ruben Ayvazyan, is a member of Prosperous Armenia party who is registered at Central Electoral Commission’s website as a lawyer at the European Court of Human Rights. 

As of now the election pledge was paid by Serzh Sargsyan, Hrant Bagratyan, Raffi Hovhannisian, Andrias Ghukasyan, Arman Meliqyan, Paruyr Hairikyan, Vardan Sedrakyan. -0-