Former President Serzh Sarkisian’s Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) confirmed on Monday that it will not try to hold major rallies during its parliamentary election campaign.

Armen Ashotian, the HHK’s deputy chairman, said it will be relying on media coverage and “knocking on people’s doors” instead.

“We will be making use of all means of campaigning: the press, online media, house-to-house visits, events on the spot. There won’t be big rallies,” Ashotian told reporters at the start of campaigning for the December 9 parliamentary elections.

“When we were in power we were holding those big rallies and they [Nikol Pashinian and his allies] were engaged in house-to-house visits,” he said. “The situation has changed. They are now in power and they are the ones who hold big rallies today, while we do house-to-house campaigning. And we are not ashamed of that.”

Ashotian insisted that the former ruling party is not afraid of “contacts with the public.” It simply believes that they must not take the form of “meetings with the masses,” he said.

“We must now stand alongside people and be much more attentive to the problems of concrete citizens, rather than use the collective presence of people for campaign videos,” added Ashotian, who served as education minister and held a senior parliamentary position during Sarkisian’s decade-long rule.

Another senior HHK figure, Vahram Baghdasarian, similarly told RFE/RL’s Armenian service last week that the Republicans will put the emphasis on television appearances and media interviews in the parliamentary race. He denied that they fear hostile public reactions or poor attendance of their rallies.

The HHK was for years accused by its political opponents and media of forcing public sector employees to attend his election campaign rallies led by Sarkisian.

Observers believe that the HHK, is now too unpopular to make a strong showing in the December 9 elections. Some of them have predicted that it will fail to win at least 5 percent of the vote needed for having seats in the new parliament.