The Central Electoral Committee of Armenia has registered 8 candidates for president of Armenia. The remaining 7 candidates were not registered, with three withdrawing their candidatures: Ruben Ayvazyan, Robert Aharonyan and Taron Abrahamyan. Another four candidates: Robert Simonyan, Pavlik Sargsyan, Mher Hayrapetyan and Narine Mkrtchyan, failed to pay the deposit till 2:00pm on January 10, the CEC told ArmInfo.
Thus, the presidential candidates are as follows: incumbent president Serzh Sargsyan from the Republican Party and former prime minister Hrant Bagratyan from the Liberty Party. All the remaining are self- nominated candidates: Leader of the Union for National Self-Determination Party Paruyr Hayrikyan, Leader of Heritage Party Raffi Hovannisian, Advisor for Political Issues of the Refugees and the International Law Civil Society Network, ex-foreign minister of NKR Arman Melikyan, Leader of National Accord Party Aram Haroutiunyan, polital expert Andras Ghukasyan, and specialist in epic Vardan Sedrakyan. The elections will be held on Feb 18 2013.