The next meeting of the “Hayastani Zhoghovrdakan Kusaktsutyun” (Armenian Popular Party) led by Stepan Demirchyan will take place on February 17 and it is quite possible that the party’s format for the upcoming parliamentary elections will be known during that meeting.
As of today, the APP will participate without an alliance. This is what APP representative and secretary of the “Justice” faction Grigor Harutyunyan said during a press conference at the “Hayeli” club. According to him, the APP has “absolutely no problem with entering the parliament”.
“We’re not taking part in the elections just to be presented in the National Assembly. We have prepared more seriously and have more serious expectations. We have high chances,” says G. Harutyunyan.
Harutyunyan says that all surveys show that 90% of Armenians are not in favor of the current Armenian authorities. He also declared that the APP approves the proposal made by leader of the Armenian Democratic Union Vazgen Manukyan, according to which the opposition must create a unified structure that will in some way coordinate the activities of the opposition so that, for example, the oppositional parties don’t go against each other with their candidates at the poll.
The second speaker during the press conference held at the “Hayeli” club on Wednesday was leader of the “Hayastani Zhoghovrdavarakan Azatakan Miutyun” (Armenian Democratic Liberal Union) political party and adviser to the Armenian President Seyran Avagyan. To begin with, the speaker said that the Armenian people have seen what right-wing extremism is, have fought against that and won. It became clear that he was talking about the Armenian National Movement, which S. Avagyan considers a right-wing extremist political party. After the next announcement made by Avagyan, it became clear that his political party was “of exclusive interest to the citizens of Armenia” in 2003. What was more interesting was Avagyan’s next announcement when he disagreed with some of the evaluations about the ADLU, claiming that the political party “entered the political field like a meteor, shined and then left the political field.” As far as I can remember, nobody has compared the ADLU with a meteor or said anything about shine. Avagyan didn’t say who noticed that meteoric shine and gave that evaluation, but he did say that the ADLU has “opened a new space” in the political field and many political parties will fit in that space. According to leader of the ADLU, the parties fitting in will succeed. After a while, Avagyan mentioned that the “Orinats Yerkir” (Rule of Law) and United Labor Party are trying to enter that space, while “Bargavach Hayastan” (Prosperous Armenia) has already entered. What have the authorities done in the past 4-5 years to make the upcoming elections better than the previous ones? According to S. Avagyan, the work of the authorities can be seen in the “constitutional resolutions”; in particular, according to Avagyan, the role of the parliament has increased.
“The price of coming to the parliament has increased,” said Avagyan without mentioning a price. However, Avagyan believes that the order of forming the electoral commissions is incorrect.
“As we have seen several times, we can’t provide the independence of the electoral commissions with this method,” he said. Whom are the commissions dependent on? Who is falsifying the elections? In response to this question given by Grigor Harutyunyan, Avagyan replied:
“Whoever wants to falsify at that moment, falsifies. Wherever there is an opportunity to falsify, we see that no political party resists the temptation.”
G. Harutyunyan announced that all the elections of Armenia, starting from the previous parliamentary and presidential elections, have been falsified from the presidential residence.
“All fingers point there, of course,” said Harutyunyan, mentioning that based on the 2nd article of the Constitution of Armenia, the government belongs to the people and added:
“An overturn took place in Armenia. The current authorities were formed as a result of that overturn when they stole that power from the people. Now it’s time to reinstate constitutional order in the country. When the people come out and don’t conform to all that’s going on, we will be the ones to lead them.” However, G. Harutyunyan didn’t say why their party was sending the hundreds of thousands of Armenian citizens who had come out to the streets in 2003 instead of leading them. But he announced once again that the country’s power has been stolen by a group of oligarchs and criminals and the power must be given back to the people.
“As any normal political power, we have also drawn our conclusions based on our experience,” assured the APP representative. According to him, the APP is going to try to prevent the “drawing of figures” during the upcoming elections through the means of their electoral commission members and trusted people. In reference to Stepan Demirchyan’s speech made recently at the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, where he had said that the constitutional amendments are “unsatisfactory for democratic development and the development of society as a whole”, Grigor Harutyunyan mentioned that Demirchyan’s speech was presented incorrectly.
“He said that it’s unacceptable that even reforms are conducted illegally,” said Harutyunyan, adding that when they come to power, their first step is going to be the approval of a legal Constitution.