Elections can not be held in Armenia because the electoral system is broken and the civil institute is eliminated.
This is what former deputy Minister of Defense of Armenia and former Coordinating Minister of Productive Substructures Vahan Shirkhanyan said during a press conference held at the “Friday” club.
“This is why a group of people and political parties have announced that they are not going to participate in the phony elections and have placed the issue of bringing back the civil institute,” announced Shirkhanyan. According to him, the civil institute had developed back in 1990-1991 in Armenia, but it gradually started to demolish and that demolition aggregated after October 1999.
V. Shirkhanyan was included in the proportional electoral list of the “Inheritance” party, but has now dropped out.
“I thought that there would be a unified oppositional field, so there was some sense to participate and I thought that it would be pointless to participate with a separate political party list,” mentioned Shirkhanyan.
Shirkhanyan classifies three courses in Armenia’s current oppositional field.
“First you have those who have started the electoral campaign (in fact in two groups-presenting themselves as the opposition but making deals with the government) and then you have those who have started the campaign with the hope to reach success and not a mandate; success, that is not determined by getting the mandate, but rather by reinstating legality in the country. The third group is the group that has announced that it will not participate in the elections, considers the elections as phony and will organize a social movement or a big partisan movement. I represent the third group,” announced Shirkhanyan.
After a while, he also said that the next two months will show the people who’s who.
“I must say that the people who immediately declared that they were going to participate alone in the elections are in a transaction,” he mentioned.
Let us recall that Artashes Geghamyan’s “National Unity” and Arthur Baghdasaryan’s “Country of Law” parties had announced about forming separate alliances a long time ago. In fact, Geghamyan has already announced that he is thinking about running for president during the 2008 presidential elections, excluding the variant that he may support the possible oppositional candidate if that candidate is not him (as it happened in 2003). In any case, according to Shirkhanyan, the second group consists of people who have not begun a campaign for the deputy mandate, but rather with the hope that they will take advantage of the chances they have based on law and urge the people to join the struggle. V. Shirkhanyan mentioned the “Republic”, “Inheritance” parties and the “Alternative” initiative as examples.
Representative of the National Assembly Republican faction Samvel Nikoyan was the second speaker during the debate held on Wednesday. According to Nikoyan, the main struggle during the upcoming parliamentary elections will be between the political parties “that do not really characterize the government-opposition struggle”.
“I am certain that the struggle will be between the political forces of the governmental regime, of course not in the sense of the classical struggle. For example, the Republican Party considers “Prosperous Armenia”, the ARF and the United Labor Party as its competitors. This year’s National Assembly elections differ from those of 2003 in the sense that they precede the presidential elections, in other words, it is a year of global change of power. With that said, there is a different logic and each political force is a competitor whether it is pro-government or not,” said Nikoyan.
Shirkhanyan had this to say to that:
“EU General Representative in the South Caucasus Peter Semnebi says that the EU welcomes the Kars-Tbilisi-Baku railway project. Levitin complains that the factories are not working because Russia has not released orders. I am simply saying what I heard this past month. “Armenia still keeps Azerbaijan’s territories, including Karabakh and the seven regions, occupied,” as stated in the U.S. State Department report. “The anti-corruption board headed by the prime minister has only conducted two meetings during the year, thus violating its rules and regulations,” also stated in the U.S. State Department report. The State Department also says that Armenia has turned into a significant country for sale of girls and women. Out of the 27 countries listed, the word significant is only next to Armenia. The rest are countries, but Armenia is significant”. He also mentioned that if we take a look at the statistics of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia, “we get a worse picture.”
“Now we have three political parties competing against each other; parties that have had power for the past 7-8 years and are now competing for power again. We say there is no ideology, rather it is politically affordable. How is it politically affordable? Can we continue these processes?” asked Shirkhanyan. Nikoyan had this to say as an answer to that question.
“We can list all the bad things. If you wish, I can add worse things. But the problem is the following: what can we do to make it better? I think that everyone must actively participate in the electoral processes”.
According to Nikoyan, the problem is the following: what are we doing?
“For example, as a deputy, I was able to debate, bring up norms and instate them in the Electoral Code that, in my opinion and according to many, makes electoral violations impossible. I did that. I want you to tell me what you are doing besides describing the bad situation,” said Nikoyan to Shirkhanyan.
In response, Shirkhanyan mentioned that if state administration has failed in issues such as the Karabakh conflict, political, socio-economic issues, as well as others, then why don’t the authorities tell the people to help them decide because apparently, they can’t do it on their own? What about Vardan Oskanyan? He sees that the whole world says that Karabakh is a part of Azerbaijan and Armenia is the aggressor. Doesn’t he have a paper and pen to sign his resignation? He has to do it today. When Levon Ter-Petrosyan was confronted with the contract he had signed and the opposition sharpened, he took the pen and paper and resigned,” said Shirkhanyan and in response to the question “Did he do a good thing?” by the Republican deputy, Shirkhanyan replied: “He did the right thing as a moral person”.