The second meeting of the “Alternative” NGO/political initiative took place on Friday at the square near the Matenadaran. Based on sources, there were 1000-1200 people participating in the meeting, including representatives of the Armenian National Movement, “Republic”, the National Democratic Alliance and other parties.
As during the previous meeting, all television networks had once again refused to broadcast 20-second paid clips of the meeting. However, TV Five had responded that it would prepare its own report on the meeting. The focus of the speeches made during the meeting was the idea of impeachment. The proposal to form an “Impeachment” alliance had been made during the previous meeting of “Alternative”. Also, the Central Electoral Commission has already registered the “Impeachment” alliance which the “Democratic Homeland” and Conservative parties are members of. The alliance’s proportional list was supposed to be announced on Saturday.
According to member of the “Alternative” initiative group Vahagn Khachatryan, the idea of impeachment turned into the litmus paper that revealed Robet Kochayan the puppet and Robert Kocharyan the oppositionist. According to “Alternative”, the public must demand the political parties to go to the elections with the purpose of impeachment, even if one by one. In his speech, member of the initiative Aghasi Yenoyan expressed his opinion that “no social, political or economic issue may be solved without the removal of the illegal regime” and that’s why impeachment becomes the prior issue at hand. According to him, whoever doesn’t support the impeachment idea, “is supporting Robert Kocharyan”. Yenokyan says that whoever is for impeachment is for the future of Armenia, while the “ones making stupid speeches are actually supporting Kocharyan”. It was proposed to join Stepan Demirchyan, Aram Z. Sargsyan, Raffi Hovhannisyan, Artashes Geghamyan and Arthur Baghdasaryan for the “impeachment”.
“Last week during our meetings, we called on oppositionists to join us and expressed our willingness to help them not get elected in the general proportional list. That was only for one purpose-so that they unite and fight against the frauds as one,” announced Aramazd Ghalamkaryan and added: “I regret to say that the traditional Armenian opposition did not hear the call of the new generation. None of the mentioned oppositionists made a practical step to make that union a reality”.
The people gathered at the meeting were offered “litmus paper” with the purpose of revealing the deputy candidates during the pre-electoral period. Vahagn Khachatryan suggested that the participants direct one question to their candidates spreading the propaganda: Are they in favor of or against impeachment?
“If the candidate does not accept the idea of impeachment, then he is going to parliament for something else. Take that as a test question,” he said.
As for representative of the “Alternative” initiative David Matevosyan, he presented the proposals for the OSCE observers. Before moving on to the proposals stated in the letter addressed to the OSCE observers, “Alternative” recalled the previous elections and the constitutional amendments referendum. According to “Alternative”, the conduct and evaluations of the OSCE observers served as grounds for the Armenian public to suspect the carefulness of the OSCE observers and the peak were their evaluations on the constitutional amendments referendum. According to the authors of the letter, that simply has a direct influence on the reputation of the international community in Armenia. In order to not have the same form of conduct and not lower the reputation of the Western representatives of democracy anymore, “Alternative” proposes activities for the observers.
Instead of having the observatory mission go around on Election Day, based on the number of observers, the mission should follow-up on the electoral process from start to finish, be present during the committee session before the vote when the committee members are determined, the fulfillment of duties during the voting process, summarize the results of the elections and registration at the Central Electoral Commission,” as stated in the proposal/letter. “Alternative” proposes to the observatory missions to purchase airtime on private television channels and give that airtime to pro-government political powers to express their opinions in order to provide a variety of opinions. Member of the “Alternative” initiative and chief editor of “Haykakan Zhamanak” Nikol Pashinyan made an announcement about the “impeachment package”, including impeachment to the government, the oligarchic mentality reigning in Armenia, the “impeachment to the president whom they are trying to have seated in the chair by means of regeneration”.
“We are going to subject the people who are trying to turn Armenia into a land of subjects to impeachment,” he mentioned.
Nikol Pashinyan explained the lack of participants at the meeting by the following:
“The grain of the mustard is the smallest of the seeds, but the branches that come out are the branches that the birds rest on. Whereas the grain of the mustard is the smallest, the grain of the potato is the biggest. Only Colorado beetles rest on the branches that are stuck out of the potato grain and we see how those “Colorado beetles” have already rested on the unspouted grain. Your potato is not going to sprout, but we are going to have a full harvest. It is going to be in June and is going to be called Free Armenia,” announced Pashinyan. The next meeting of “Alternative” will be held on March 9 at 5 p.m. at the square near the Matenadaran.