Head of the Armenian National Movement (ANM) board, Ararat Zurabyan, says that he thinks that the former president of Armenia would be nominated during the upcoming elections. “I believe that the former president’s appearance in the political field and announcements will play a bigger role in the ongoing political processes than the activities of some political parties as a whole”, said Ararat Zurabyan. Recently the “Center of electoral systems” organization conducted an online survey about the most potential Armenian presidential candidates and here are the results. The first Armenian president is in first place – 16,2%, the second candidate is the first foreign affairs minister of Armenia, Raffi Hovhannisyan – 12,2%, third place is given to the current defense minister, Serj Sargsyan – 10,9. Nevertheless, the head of the ANM board said that if the former president didn’t participate in the elections, the ANM would take part by all means and would advocate the head of “Armat” NGO, Babken Araktsyan. Ararat Zurabyan said that Levon Ter-Petrosyan didn’t lead a good pre-election campaign back in 1996. It was during that time that Babken Araktsyan was head of Ter-Petrosyan’s pre-election headquarters. A. Zurabyan said that maybe Araktsyan was a bad coordinator, but would be a nice candidate. Zurabyan said that their party had 7.000 members and would actively participate in the upcoming parliamentary elections. He said that they would collaborate with other parties too, and said that they would definitely collaborate with some other oppositional parties, including the Liberal Progressive party of Armenia and the Republican party. However, he didn’t exclude the possibility that they might collaborate with other oppositional powers as well. Ararat Zurabyan said that they would negotiate with the oppositional “Republic” party to come to terms concerning their cooperation; however he didn’t mention just how they were going to work together. At the same time, A. Zurabyan said that they were not going to collaborate with political parties that are trying to limit the human freedoms and undermine the independence of Armenia and added that “there are oppositional powers too that don’t differ from the authorities and if they had power, they would give everything to the Russians too”. He said that Armenia should revise its policy with Russia, but meanwhile be careful. Zurabyan said that the authorities are trying to “re-produce” power and the opposition should not allow that to happen. “I think it is possible to do that. I think that we had that opportunity in 2003 too. The opposition could reach its goal if it coordinated its activities better”, said Ararat Zurabyan. The latter said that the authorities don’t collect more than 15% of votes during elections and the opposition should do its best not to allow them to collect more. Concerning the newly established “Alternative” organization (18 members), which mostly consists of ANM board members and “Armat” members, Mr. Zurabyan said that it was too soon to guess what kind of role they were going to play. “We are a political party that is actually working. For instance, if a group of politicians is choosing another path to take, we don’t join them or work against them”, said Mr. Zurabyan and added that generally in developed countries parties are the main political activists and it is not right to create a new political unit. “They have founded a political unit and believe that this is the correct way. I don’t think so. However, I don’t fight against them and am ready to collaborate”, said Ararat Zurabyan.
