Former parliament speaker Artur Baghdasaryan said on February 7 that his Legal State party, one of the largest in Armenia, will not form an alliance with other opposition groups to contest the May 12 parliamentary elections. Baghdasaryan said the decision to take part in the vote single-handedly was made at a meeting of the party’s governing board the previous night. “In artificial alliances, jealousy is stronger than love,” he explained. “We think that it’s better to have healthy cooperation on concrete issues and principles than to consolidate parties with different ideologies and programs.”
Legal State, which claims to have more than 90,000 members, has been courted by other major opposition parties ever since it was forced out of President Robert Kocharyan’s governing coalition in May last year. Baghdasaryan has reportedly discussed with some of them the possibility of setting up a pro-Western electoral alliance. The ambitious ex-speaker said he is open to other forms of close cooperation with “healthy opposition forces.” He said that includes jointly countering attempts to falsify election results, which are anticipated by many other opposition figures. Baghdasaryan was less pessimistic on that score, saying that the Armenian opposition is able to prevent vote rigging. Like the other opposition Justice alliance and the National Unity Party, Legal State controls one of the nine seats in the Central Election Commission and its territorial divisions. The party is expected to be a major contender in the upcoming elections thanks to its leader’s populist appeal. Asked whether he is ready to again team up with parties loyal to Kocharyan after the vote, Baghdasaryan told reporters, “Naturally, we will primarily cooperate with opposition forces. We want the opposition to have a majority in the parliament. To that end, we will cooperate with all opposition parties.”
The parliamentary election 2007 is a window of hope for Armenia, and efforts should be made to hold a fair and legitimate election. He mentioned that the government is first of all responsible for a legitimate election, which must provide equal opportunities for all the political forces. Meanwhile, no opportunities are provided, said the leader of the Legal State Party. However, the government alone should not be responsible, thinks the leader of the Legal State Party. He believes that the opposition can also make efforts to prevent electoral fraud. Arthur Baghdasaryan says the government is trying to preach that there is no opposition, there is no alternative to it. The leader of the Legal State Party says it is unacceptable. “The opposition has enough potential to fight together. The Legal State Party is determined to fight, and is ready to cooperate with all the healthy forces,” Arthur Baghdasaryan states. He admits that the government has great advantages, both in terms of money and administrative levers, but it is wrong to state today that there will be electoral fraud, and nothing can be done about it. He is a proponent of pro-active efforts against electoral fraud. Arthur Baghdasaryan reminds that the amended Electoral Code articles on electoral fraud were criminalized on the proposal of the Legal State Party. “Dear voters, we inform you that during the elections giving bribe to a voter to vote for a party or a candidate, directly or through a mediator, is sentenced to 3-5 years in prison, taking a bribe is sentenced to 1-3 years or a fine of two million drams.” This provision of the Electoral Code will be broadcast during the election campaign. “We should fight these theses into reality,” says Arthur Baghdasaryan. He states that the Legal State Party has plans of activities for the pre-election, electoral and post-election periods. “We will be going in the front, we will be fighting. Besides, we should not send the nation into despair, we should not say there will be electoral fraud and nothing can be done about it. Today we must fight to prevent fraud,” says Arthur Baghdasaryan.
Baghdasaryan was asked whether didn’t regret for supporting Kocharyan in 1998. “No I haven’t regretted for anything. There have been a lot of good things within the coalition. I say this quite honestly. There have also been many bad things. We have started to fight against the negative things since the first day we are in power. We have had a lot of pressure and attacks on us,” he said by not mentioning even a single example of abuse. He also complained that the PEC chairmen of the Legal State from Masis, Goris, Sisian and Artik were fired. Baghdasaryan asks, “Why would the PEC chairmen be only from government?”
He said the TV companies have released the prices of political ads – 100 thousand drams for one minute. “When the minimum salary in the country is 20 thousand drams from January 1, when the basic pension and poverty benefit and other benefits are several thousand drams, the opposition parties will appear in a difficult situation,” says Arthur Baghdasaryan. He says one minute of political advertisement costs as much as the pre-election deposit for one majority candidate.
P.S. “Why do you complain about the absence of an alternative if there is the “Alternative” Public initiative, which is going to hold rallies starting from February 20?”. Baghdasaryan added that the Legal State is also going to conduct active rallies as well as hold hall meetings, through press and TV. So any oppositional party may hold its rally – the Alternative or the PPA, etc.