Assasinations and blasts in Armenia continue · Global Voices
Artur Papyan

Armenia has gone out of control these days with blasts, shooting and assassination attempts following one another.
“2 offices of ‘Prosperous Armenia’ [one of the most powerful pro-presidential political parties running for parliament in the elections on May 12, 2007] were blown up” reported Kornelij Glas (ru) about the blasts that rocked in Zeytun and Avan districts of Yerevan, the capital of Armenia on the night of April 12. This report was soon followed by more detailed posts by other bloggers: Oneworld Multimedia, Hyelog.  Soon Onnik Krikoryan of Oneworld Multimedia followed up with photos from the  site of bombings and more comments:
Indeed, almost everybody in Yerevan is already pointing the finger at the Republican Party although a few say that either the incident was manufactured to make believe a serious rift between the two exists or that Prosperous Armenia staged the incident themselves. However, as I said, most believe it was the work of the Republicans although the ruling party effectively denies the accusation.
The bloggers can’t stop wondering just how far the assassinations will go; Armenia Blog is comparing Armenia these days with Chicago 80 years ago and quoting ArmeniaNow, listing some of the recent high profile assassination attempts and killings:
The assassination attempt against the Mayor of Gyumri Monday night, leaving three dead and three wounded, is the eighth high-profile and public attack within just over a year. In all the cases, only two arrests have been made, and none brought to justice
JLiving notes (ru) writes about attacks on Parliment candidates: shootings at Hakob Hakobyan’s (Choit) car past midnight and the arson attack at the election office of Sousanna Haroutyunyan.
Well, as Kornelij Glas (ru)  puts it in his election leaflet #7, the “Kalashnikov guns have already become the number one brand of the pre-election campaign” in Armenia.
The terrible statistics make this pre-election campaign seem like the most dangerous one since Armenia’s independence in 1991 …and the official campaign has just started on 8th April!!!
Photo by E-channel. Used with permission.