Nikol Pashinyan urges public to achieve de-jure recognition of Raffi Hovannisian as president of Armenia

• Friday, February 22, 18:34

Parliamentarian from Armenian National Congress Nikol Pashinyan has addressed the public at a rally in the Liberty Square urging them to achieve de-jure recognition of Raffi Hovannisian as president of Armenia.

He said that solution of that task is the goal of their current meeting.

"With our will we must make the authorities leave and avoid any violence or clashes. We should avoid provocations, because we need civil consolidation," he said.

He said that the people's success at the election is that it managed to elect de-facto new president in the person of Hovannisian. The people's failure is that Serzh Sargsyan is still in power, but this mistake can be and should be corrected. He said that before the election, it seemed that Sargsyan will manage to finally form a unipolar political system and will head it. However, the election has failed that idea and there is now a bipolar political system in the
country: Serzh Sargsyan on the one side and the public on the other side.

The preliminary data of the Feb 18 presidential election aroused high public response in the country. To recall, Raffi Hovannisian received 36.75% of votes and lost the Feb 18 presidential election to the incumbent president Serzh Sargsyan who received 58.64% of votes.  Since February 19 Hovannisian has been organizing rallies in the Liberty Square. Unlike the previous ones, this rally has not been anctioned. It is noteworthy that Head of ARFD Faction, representative of the ARFD Supreme Body Armen Rustamyan, joined the rally. Andreas Ghoukassyan, candidate for president, is also present at the rally.