Strong Armenia faction lawmaker Davit Ghazinyan, commenting on the arrests in Stepanavan, said the official statement had once again violated the presumption of innocence, adding that “the authorities have resorted to pressure and repressive methods.”
According to him, the money shown in the video could have been intended for any purpose, Auroranews.am reports.
“Transactions of up to 300,000 drams can be conducted in cash. That money could be for anything. Does taking money out of one’s pocket necessarily mean it is a bribe? People also receive salaries. By their [the authorities’] logic, do people work for six months just to distribute their earnings as bribes afterward? It is generally strange that someone supposedly keeps giving bribes, yet they still cannot find those receiving them,” Ghazinyan said.
According to the lawmaker, law enforcement agencies have never been “involved in political life on such a scale” under any previous government.
“This is absolute rule by one person. No prosecutor or investigator can claim to be independent. He makes every decision single-handedly,” Ghazinyan stated.
At the same time, he did not categorically rule out the possibility that someone might have attempted to offer voters financial incentives on their own initiative. He said that if anyone had decided to act independently in this way, they would be punished first and foremost by the party leadership.
Ghazinyan said he had visited Stepanavan two days earlier, spoken with the candidate and the campaign headquarters chief, and repeatedly warned that no one should attempt to do the party a “disservice” by distributing money.
He added that he had questions about both the identity of the person who filed the report and the content of the recording.
“The Anti-Corruption Committee itself does not deny that the videos are edited. But to what extent are they edited? That distorts their meaning,” the lawmaker asserted.
Several days before the local government elections in Stepanavan, 14 representatives of Strong Armenia, including its mayoral candidate, were detained.
