Nikol Pashinyan invites Samvel Aleksanyan to TV debates.

Haykakan Zhamanak daily’s chief editor, and opposition bloc Armenian National Congress (ANC) member, Nikol Pashinyan refused to comment on the information with regard to Heritage Party leader Raffi Hovannisian’s withdrawal of his candidacy from capital Yerevan’s Electoral District No. 7, since, as per Pashinyan, this withdrawal has not de jure taken place as of yet. Nikol Pashinyan himself—who, along with pro-government businessman Samvel Aleksanyan, likewise will run in the aforesaid electoral district—stated this during a press conference on Monday.

He said that his official representative had called Electoral District No. 7, twenty minutes before the press conference, and was informed that Raffi Hovannisian had not yet withdrawn his majority-system candidacy for the forthcoming parliamentary elections.

In Nikol Pashinyan’s words, Heritage had suggested to commence discussions on the nominations even before the actual nominations, to which ANC had agreed and asked them to present their nomination map. But the Heritage Party, as per Pashinyan, had not presented any map, or offer, for a long time.

And following the nomination phase, according to Pashinyan, ANC listened to Heritage’s offer, according to which the latter could withdraw its candidate from Electoral District No. 7, provided that ANC do the same in several other electoral districts.

“ANC assessed that such proposal is not a grounds for talks, since no one could consider such offer to be logical,” Nikol Pashinyan concluded.

Nikol Pashinyan also added: "You know, that president Serzh Sargsyan stated that business should be separated from authority. Now Samvel Aleksanyan, who is known mostly with the name 'Lfik Samo', is included in the RPA proportional list and was nominated through majority electoral system by the RPA. The Republican party says Samvel Aleksanyan is not a businessman. If he is not a businessman, he is a political figure. Therefore, let`s organize  debate and see what kind of political figure is Samvel Aleksanyan and what political figures represent RPA in these parliamentary elections."