YEREVAN, DECEMBER 2, ARMENPRESS. Freedom, democracy and sovereignty don’t only relate to the citizens who intend to vote for Im Kayl (My Step) bloc in this election, it relates to all those citizens who are casting their vote according to an independent, sovereign free decision, who don’t allow anyone to guide them, caretaker Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, candidate for parliament leading the My Step bloc’s electoral list, said during a campaigning event in Sisian.

“There is only one way to guide in elections: that’s campaigning – to hear out politicians and parties, get familiarized with them, and eventually decide whom you want to vote for. We are now in the status of a government, and by saying democracy we don’t simply mean what is advantageous for us. When we say freedom, it means freedom for all citizens, for those who agree with us and for those who don’t agree with us,” Pashinyan said.

Pashinyan also spoke about an incident back during the 2017 Yerevan City Council election, when his political team had discovered evidence of vote buying committed by Republicans in a campaigning office.

“We addressed the prosecution, however they refused to launch a criminal case. We then applied to court in order to overrule the decision to drop the criminal case. During this court case the revolution took place and it was only after the revolution that I learned that the court has approved our lawsuit and the Special Investigative Committee has re-started the investigation into the criminal case on vote buying. As of today, this case is sent to court and the investigative body has gathered evidence that 130,000 dollars in electoral bribes have been distributed from this campaigning office and 11 people from the Republican party’s campaigning office have a status of defendants,” Pashinyan said.

Pashinyan said that this fact ought to be a serious signal for anyone who plans to attempt to distort the will of the Armenian citizens through any illicit method.

“I mean everyone. There might be people who will illegally try to, falsely, secure votes for My Step bloc for rendering the so-called bear’s services. My Step bloc doesn’t need no [illicit] votes. Let no one try to render illicit services to us, because even a single vote gained through that kind of a method will be a humiliation for us, for personally me and the revolution. We must now allot anyone to have any impact on the citizens’ will,” he said.

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan tendered a technical resignation on October 16 in a maneuver to trigger the process of dissolving the parliament.

In accordance to the Constitution, when a Prime Minister resigns the parliament must elect a new PM within two weeks. Lawmakers deliberately failed to elect a new PM as a formality in order to pave the way for dissolution.

Pashinyan took office after massive protests in April forced president-turned PM Serzh Sargsyan to resign. But Sargsyan’s Republican Party (HHK) still held most seats in the 105-seat parliament. Since taking office, Nikol Pashinyan has numerously said that the incumbent parliament doesn’t represent the people and that early elections should take place as soon as possible.

The parliament was dissolved by virtue of law on November 1.  On the same day, President of Armenia Armen Sarkissian signed an order on calling early general election on December 9.

The incumbent parliament functions until the new parliament is elected.

The government is formally a caretaker government until a new Cabinet is formed after the election.

The campaigning period kicked off November 26 with 11 political parties and blocs running for parliament.

Edited and translated by Stepan Kocharyan