The Republican Party of Armenia Has Decided on the Yerevan City Council Elections

The Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) will not participate in the upcoming Yerevan City Council elections, announced RPA Vice President Armen Ashotyan, who is currently under arrest as part of a criminal case.

“I learned that my name was circulated in some media as an opposition candidate for the mayor in the upcoming elections of Yerevan. While I was in prison and did not have the opportunity to clarify the origins of such discussions, I want to respond, filling in the perspectives of my party members. I am not going to participate in the elections of the capital's authorities in any way. My party, the Republican Party of Armenia, also shares this position because the priority issues of Armenia and Artsakh have nothing to do with the current administration's damp dreams of placing Tigran Avinyan on the mayoral throne,” he stated.

Thanking all potential supporters and those who sincerely see me in this role, I also want to mention that I see three motivations behind the government's interest in a hypothetical candidacy from me: 1. To add political seriousness to an event related to the capital, but which falls below the level of the 'Golden Autumn' festival and has become provincial; 2. To engage the public with the Yerevan elections in parallel with the tightening gallows around Armenia and Artsakh; 3. I do not rule out that certain 'high-ranking' members of the QP would want me to 'harm' Avinyan's fantasies.

As a postscript, the fabricated theme of my possible candidacy has inspired journalists so much that one of them justified its expediency, although he himself admitted that my appointment as Minister of Education in 2009 was viewed by President Sargsyan as ‘the appointment of Caligula's horse as a member of the Senate.’ Utilizing this parallel to justify the collective evolution experienced by 'horses' after Caligula, I must unpretentiously mention that 'Serzh’s horse,' of course, was not the best specialist in the field of education, but was equipped with knowledge of three foreign languages, a gold medal from general education, and a scholarship from a medical university, along with training at two leading international universities. Therefore, this comparison was not convincing. However, if it is fundamentally important to compare me with horses, I can hint at two historically mythical horses known in history: Bucephalus of Macedon and the close companion of Catherine,” he concluded.