It seems as though Republican MP Armen Ashotyan has once again found himself in the middle of an inter-political conflict and this time the reason is not his opinions about the “Prosperous Armenia” party. Before the Republican party convention, Ashotyan said that he compared the “Prosperous Armenia” party to the posters reading “coming soon” posted on store walls to let the people know about a certain company’s presence.
“There are no business cards and the only political figure representing the party is Gagik Tsarukyan. So, what they’re really doing is spreading that “soon” PR-“Prosperous Armenia” will be here soon, “Prosperous Armenia” will “soon” have its grand opening…” says the Republican MP.
Members of “Prosperous Armenia”, however, considered this as an insult and in response to that, they organized their own meeting after the Republican party’s convention at the Sundukyan theatre, where Gagik Tsarukyan responded to their comments by saying that politics is about diplomacy and they will wait as long as it takes. Rumor has it that the reason that Gagik Tsarukyan didn’t accept the Republicans’ invitation to attend their convention was the offensive remarks.
According to Armen Ashotyan, he had no intentions of offending anyone. It’ s just that some people misconstrued what he said and he considers that normal due to the fact that “each opinion is subjective.”
As for his comments during the press conference, Ashotyan says that there is nothing negative about them.
“I have been involved in political scandals throughout my career, but I try to stay away from them. Although I must say that the conflicts haven’t been planned out beforehand. I don’t consider this last event as a scandal,” says Armen Ashotyan.
He compared the Republican party with the “political brand”.
“Each political party is already a type of brand. A brand helps companies worldwide reach success. Even countries refer to brands. I can bring up the Republican party as an example of steps taken towards political marketing, if you will, when two large political teams united as one and this group tended to be the one to manipulate. This was like how “Sony” and “Ericsson” joined and formed the “Sony-Ericsson” brand,” said Ashotyan.
“Some journalists mixed up what I said and what I didn’t say. For the time being, there are no serious disagreements between the Republicans and “Prosperous Armenia”. It’s obvious that if the “Prosperous Armenia” party makes it to the pre-election period, then it might be able to play a major role in the political field. To have a powerful party next to the Republican party means to prohibit the rest of the parties to voice their opinions. So, it’s natural to see a conflict between the two parties because that will help the others win,” said Ashotyan. However, he didn’t really mention who the competitors were.
It is worth mentioning that Prime Minister of Armenia and leader of the Republican party Andranik Markaryan, as well as Defense Minister of Armenia and head of the party board Serge Sargsyan, expressed the same opinion about “Prosperous Armenia”. But “Prosperous Armenia” only responded to Ashotyan’s remarks. When asked why, Ashotyan said it was because journalists had only mixed up his remarks made during the press conference and that had started the conflict.
Many know that “Prosperous Armenia” wasn’t responding to Ashotyan, but rather to Markaryan and Sargsyan. They just thought that responding to Ashotyan’s remarks was more suitable.
According to our sources, the “Rule of Law”, “Alliance” and “Prosperous Armenia” parties are going to try to cooperate after the upcoming parliamentary elections. Of course, they deny that for the time being. Member of the “Alliance” party board Andranik Tevanyan said during a phone conversation that there was no such thing but that there may be cooperation. Since that alliance is going to be aimed against the Republican party, I asked Armen Ashotyan for his opinion.
“I don’t know what can unite the three parties together because each has different principles. I know that each alliance aimed against this or that party is dangerous. A political party founded based on negativity may endanger the country. Take for example Ukraine or Georgia,” said Ashotyan.