Armenia’s President urges Hovannisian to stop hunger strike and work together

YEREVAN, March 25. /ARKA/. President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan responded to the letter of the leader of Heritage Party Raffi Hovhannissian urging him to stop hunger strike and jointly work.

Former presidential candidate Hovannisian, read Friday a letter addressed to Sargsyan during the rally of his supporters on Yerevan’s Liberty Square.  In the letter, Hovannisian called upon Serzh Sargsyan to appoint his (Hovannisian’s) eight supporters to different positions, such as General Prosecutor, State Revenue Committee Head, Chief of National Security Service, Ministers of Foreign Affairs, Education and Science, Control Chamber, Council of Justice and Anticorruption commission.

Moreover, he appealed to the incumbent president to remove at least five regional governors from their positions and appoint his supporters to these offices.

Hovannisian also required to put amendments to Electoral Code eliminating majoritarian electoral system, holding extraordinary presidential or parliamentary elections within a year.

“I urge you, please stop the hunger strike, recuperate for a day or two and we will start working seriously together, committing our ideas to paper, quietly, without shows, even taking as a point of departure your - at the moment very incondite – account,” President’s Office quoted Sargsyan’s letter. 

Sargsyan in his letter thanked Hovannisian for “finally accepting my proposal made during our meeting, for putting your ideas on the paper and passing them on.”

“However remote the written matter addressed to me from the appropriate notions of the state and state authority formation is and in contradiction with the stipulations of the Constitution currently in force, it is nonetheless can be helpful in commencing an efficient dialogue,” the president responded.

“I am glad that you also possess readiness to assume serious monitoring functions which befits strong opposition, and it looks like on that issue our positions are quite close. I am confident that if we start working together purposefully, based on the community of opinions, we will definitely get results.”

Serzh Sargsyan won February 18 presidential elections gaining 58.64% of votes leaving behind his main opponent, Raffi Hovannisian,  with 36.74%. Hovannisian, however, didn’t recognize the final results, organizing rallies all over the country. Since March 10 he has been on a hunger strike.  -0-