Presidential Elections in Armenia

Armenia will vote for a president on February 18. There are 8 candidates nominated for the presidency. The most notorious is Vardan Sedrakyan whose program has a very distinct anti-Georgian form. Of course Sedrakyan has no chance to win the elections, but the fact that a candidate with such a program participates in the election is already very alarming.

Initially there were 15 people applying to run for the presidency but only 8 of them submitted to the Central Election Commission and provided the required financial deposit of $20, 000 USD and were thus registered. Sedrakyan’s anti-Georgian statements were already known however.

According to Sedrakyan, similar crises including Karabakh's independence, which Armenia supports, is the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. He said the non-recognition of these entities as independent is a “serious error” committed by Armenia. He promises that in the case of victory he will do his best in this direction.

Moreover, Sedrakyan thinks that there are 250, 000 Armenian ethnic representatives in Georgia who insist on the separation from Georgia of the Javakheti region where most Armenians are concentrated. As for Karabakh, Sedrakyan plans to declare it as an integral part of Armenia together with the adjacent to Karabakh Azeri territories which are now occupied by Armenia.

The next step according to his plan is to take over the Nakhchevan autonomous region of Azerbaijan and integrate it with Armenia.

The lunatic dreams of Sedrakyan go further. He wants to recognize Abkhazia as an independent entity with the capital in Kutaisi. This delirium of the presidential candidate really embarrasses the Armenian ethnic Diaspora in Georgia. Some of them commenting about these issues say Sedrakyan is not a politician and his participation in the elections is just a kind of humor. No serious politician would repeat what he is saying,

Of course nobody in Georgia should seriously discuss this nonsense and definitely no Armenian political figure is repeating similar statements. They accept and recognize Georgia’s territorial integrity and understand the real situation and friendly sentiments between the two neighboring nations.

Arnold Stepanian, Chairman of the public movement Multinational Georgia, stated that Sedrakyan has a zero rating in Armenia. It is obvious that Sedrakyan will further disseminate his position when the election campaign starts in Armenia from January 25. Without a doubt, such statements are not in Armenia’s interests. However, the question remains: who stands behind Sedrakyan and who is financing his election campaign and his notorious ideas?