On October 16, the anti-criminal movement members held conferences regarding the dollar-dram exchange rates, where there were many members of the “New Times” and “National Unity” parties. With his “big” speech, leader of “National Unity” Artashes Geghamyan tried to make the people understand that the “higher authorities” were making a lot of money thanks to the ups-and-downs of the currency exchange rates.
During the speech, the gatherers tried to take a trip down memory lane and remembered how the so-called “Dutch illness” began. Besides that, the gatherers also found out about some causes and effects of the production of Columbian coffee, but it was apparent that the anti-criminal movement activists were angrier at the recent announcement made by President Robert Kocharyan, according to which the comments of the Armenian opposition regarding the case of MP Hakob Hakobyan made it clear that the anti-criminal movement’s “balloon” popped and that the movement wasn’t really anything serious.
“Businessmen consider President Robert Kocharyan as the balloon and are trying to fill in the empty space with absurd information,” said A. Geghamyan, who claims that parts of his speech made on television were cut off and as a result, people had misunderstood what he was trying to say.
“We said that we didn’t want to be a part of that phoniness because you authorities don’t want to fight against the criminals, but rather create an illusion and make it seem like you want to join the struggle. But what you’re really doing is throwing dust in people’s eyes,” said A. Geghamyan in closing.
As for leader of “New Times” Aram Karapetyan, he is of the opinion that “Mr. Kocharyan probably loved balloons when he was little. Something always blows up in front of him.” “I can honestly say that all the activities of the anti-criminal movement are tied to the announcements made by the parties participating in the anti-criminal movement,” said A. Karapetyan and added that in his opinion, it’s okay to not only arrest Hakob Hakobyan, but more than half of the MPs sitting in the Armenian parliament. “If everyone accepts that, then I will mention more names in the future as leader of “New Times”. Let’s see if they will continue to go against those people?” said A. Karapetyan. The latter also said that his party “cheers” the prosecutor for doing his job and are ready to help him with whatever they can so that he can continue the process. “H. Hakobyan said ‘if you saw that taking place since 1991, how come you didn’t do anything for the past 15 years? Perhaps (I’m making a reference to his words) everyone came and got what they wanted’. So, it turns out that Mr. Hakobyan clearly said that there have been cases of corruption. I consider that an official statement and we need to list the cases of corruption too,” says Karapetyan.
Why Hakob Hakobyan? According to A. Karapetyan, there are two circumstances; either this is a result of a struggle among parties to come to power-in that case “we are very happy, let t here be a struggle between powers so that the society can finally get rid of the bad ones”-or the second option: “You know, it’s always like that. They always gather a group of people, punish one of them; Hakob Hakobyan did something. This was an occasion and not a reason.” According to the leader of “New Times”, the president is mistaken and the party accepts any kind of anti-criminal movement, “whether that is started by pro-government officials or oppositionists”.
“Even if it’s an imitation, our party accepts that because it’s better to start by imitating, get somewhere, rather than do nothing at all. I consider it a good thing,” says A. Karapetyan.
Karapetyan calls on the President of Armenia, the “wide sector” of the National Assembly and the chief prosecutor not to stop by only investigating H. Hakobyan, “because they don’t have a lot of space to move around.” “The president shouldn’t be afraid of “balloons”. Nothing has blown up,” he says. A. Karapetyan doesn’t care about the “goal to persecute” H. Hakobyan because H. Hakobyan hasn’t come up to his party and said that they are doing wrong by persecuting him. “H. Hakobyan has been one for the government to lean on; like the others, he also committed electoral fraud during the elections, took part in all the events and “Ardshininvestbank” didn’t consider him as a good investor. When they were committing fraud, they should have thought about the consequences,” says the leader of “New Times”. According to him, another oligarch from the Republican party will meet the same fate as Hakobyan. But doesn’t Karapetyan see a tendency? Aren’t there any criminals outside the Republican party? “Either they’re not looking outside the Republican party, or there are so many criminals registered as Republican party members that they simply decided to start off with that party,” said A. Karapetyan in response to the question. According to him, Robert Kocharyan and Serge Sargsyan are connected to one another like Siamese twins, but he says that S. Sargysan wants to become president, while Robert Kocharyan doesn’t want to become Prime Minister in case Sargsyan gets elected because he knows very well that if Sargsyan becomes president, “the entire Constitution of Armenia will quickly go through reforms and the prime minister will have no power.” At the same time, the “New Times” party leader says that Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Vartan Oskanyan may also become president. “I don’t think that someone who has been pro-American in the past can become president of Armenia, but it would be nice to see Oskanyan run for president because it will be easy for him to win,’ said A. Karapetyan in closing.