The operation on Parouyr
Hayrikyan, leader of Self-Determination Union political party,
who has been hospitalized with a gunshot wound, went successfully.
Now he is at the Saint Grigor the Illuminator medical center, its
resuscitation department, according to the presidential candidate's
press-secretary Manya Ayvazyan.

Besides Hayrikyan's health
condition, everyone now is concerned with a question, whether the
election day of 18 February 2013 be postponed or not.

The Central
Electoral Commission (CEC) has not yet made any announcement.
Yesterday, after midnight, Tigran Mukuchyan, CEC Chairman,
told reporters that it would not be correct to talk about postponing
the date of elections until the health situation of Mr Hayrikyan is
clear. In other words, the delay of the election depends on the
health condition of the presidential candidate.

Hovik Abrahamyan,
Speaker of the National Assembly (NA), during his visit at hospital,
mentioned that he does not think that there will be a necessity to
postpone elections, but if Parouyr Hayrikyan says that he is not in
condition to continue the campaign, then the elections will be
postponed.

According to Article
52 of the Constitution, in case of impenetrable obstacles faced by
one of presidential candidates, the election should be postponed for
a period of two weeks. If the impenetrable obstacles continue then
new election should be assigned.

Various state and
political figures try to assess the event and understand its motives.

Vladimir Gasparyan,
Head of Police, does not want to talk about possible motives
of the murder attempt, he assures that “the investigation will
consider all motives in detail”.

Vardan Oskanyan, NA
deputy, member of Prosperous Armenia faction, in his Facebook
page made a note that the event is terrible and has to be condemned,
and damages the reputation of the nation and the country, and his
opinion on the motives of the attempt is that we should be careful
and wait until the legal bodies finish their work.

Today Arthur
Baghdasaryan, Secretary of the National Security Council (NSC),
visited the medical center. He condemned the event and advised to
wait for the results of investigation before jumping into
conclusions.

“...It is a mean and
treacherous attack on elections at this time, directed against the
Armenian powers. ...Discovery of the crime will give answers to many
questions, including who benefits from this and why, what are the
reasons, and who is not interested to see our country in peaceful
development”, mentioned the NSC Secretary, and added that the
president of the republic gave a strong command to discover the crime
in shortest time.

The ruling Armenian
Republican Party (ARP) representatives see in the event also a
provocation against all and the powers, and look for those who
benefits from it.

Hovik Abrahamyan,
Speaker of the National Assembly(NA), believes that the attempt has
political motives and is aimed at the statehood. Eduard
Sharmazanov, Vice Speaker of the NA and press secretary of the
ARP condemns what has happened and expressed an opinion that it is a
provocation aimed at everybody, against administration of democratic,
fair and transparent elections.

Armen Ashotyan,
Minister of Education and member of the ARP, wrote on his Facebook
page that the attempt is “a mean and treacherous event” and
proposed a rhetoric question “who does benefit from it?”and “what
it is aimed at?”. The minister sees in the event an attempt to
destabilization of the situation, putting a shadow on elections, and
hardening international assessment of elections, as well as aiming at
assignment of new elections.

Let us remind
that on 31 January, at about 23:30, Parouyr Hayrikyan, leader of
Self-Determination Union political party and RA presidential
candidate, was shot in the backyard of the house No. 9 on
Tpagrichneri Street.

Today he underwent
an operation at the Saint Grigor the Illuminator medical center. It
was reported that the surgery was successful and the life of the
politician is not in danger. Currently, he is in the resuscitation
unit.