The opposition Armenian National Congress (ANC) on Monday released a statement on rescheduling its rally originally planned for February 17 (for March 1). The postponement of the rally caused speculations that the ANC has serious disagreements over its proportional list for the May parliamentary election.

The ANC representatives report that the reason of the rally’s rescheduling is “severe weather conditions”, however, Chairman of the Union of Political Scientists of Armenia Hmayak Hovhannisyan reminds that in Moscow, for example, “the rally wave does not cease under -30C [-22F] and even more freezing weather conditions, so there is no such a reasoning.”

According to Hovhannisyan, the Hrazdan mayoral elections – in which the opposition candidate lost -- are more grounded reasons, “the elections would either promote giving new passion to the weakened body of the ANC or deepen the crisis.” Some believe this is “specious excuses”; meanwhile the real reason is the failure in the Hrazdan mayoral elections, as well as the problems over the ANC proportional list.

“This failure [in the Hrazdan mayoral elections], where the whole ANC potential was concentrated, has essentially reduced the ANC’s expectations to have success in the upcoming Parliamentary elections, and this failure needed a thorough analysis, and time was needed for it,” Hovhannisyan told ArmeniaNow.

ANC representatives consider such conclusions to be “fictitious”.

“There is no problem, the only problem is the weather [temperature], that day it will be -7C (19.4F),” ANC member Grigor Harutyunyan told ArmeniaNow.

However, another reason is also mentioned, according to which ANC leaders cannot present the people who will be included in their proportional list to the public.

Stepan Demirchyan, leader of the People's Party of Armenia (an ANC member) believes that making a proportional list out of 18 parties included in the ANC is a “very complicated problem”.

Meanwhile, Hovhannisyan says that the problem is not complicated, it is simply “technically unsolvable”.

“The Unity Alliance (which included two political forces headed by Vazgen Sargsyan and Karen Demirchyan) faced the same problem and it was extremely difficult to make a proportional list even out of two parties, and as for 18 parties - it is simply impossible to do, or it must be done through authoritarian means,” Hovhannisyan says.