Heritage leader=?UTF-8?B?4oCZ?=s fundraising plan is PR - politician

The Heritage party leader's decision to collect money from his co-thinkers is either a PR campaign or an attempt to provide an alibi for avoiding the presidential elections, according to an Armenian politician.
Speaking to Tert.am, President of the Armenian Political Analyst's Union Hmayak Hovhannisyan explained Raffi Hovhannisyan's "innovative idea" by financial difficulties that might have forced him to collect his election pawn from his electorate.
“We are aware that Raffi Hovhannisyan really receives a serious financial assistance from the United States, and even the political engineers in the upper circles say they are promised a serious funding and investments in case they work for the team,” he said.
"Hence this is either a PR campaign or a breeding ground to prepare an alibi for withdrawing his candidacy all of a sudden after making a bombastic statement saying, 'I am participating in the presidential elections for the first and last time'," Hovhannistan explained.
The politician said he has nothing against the Heritage leader's fundraising plan, adding that he would have considered the move quite justified had it been proposed for a non-partisan candidate.
"If he is a party leader, the costs for his nomination have to be covered by his party, if the given [political] figure jas the backing of a real party in the classical sense of the word and in case the given party is not an interest group, but rather – a party which operates organizations and in which people live with a party life," he said.
Under Armenia's Electoral Code, the sum to be paid by presidential candidates as an election pawn is 8 million dram ($20,000).
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