Yesterday the ANC held a rally in the vicinity of the Matenadaran, and the leaders of the the political powers of ANC member parties were present. There were people from the regions at the rally too, who said that many people from their regions had not been able to come because the transportation did not work. As it happened during the previous rallies of the ANC, this time the authorities ordered the transportation between cities to stop working from the morning. The rally took place and the first president Levon Ter-Petrosyan, Aram Sargsyan, Stepan Demirchyan and other representatives of the ANC made speeches. Former prosecutor Gagik Jhangiryan made a speech as well. The rally was ended with a march this time too.
The rally was moderated by the president of ANM board Aram Manukyan, who said that the situation in the country was so bad that even according to the official statistics 33% of the nation, i.e. about 1 million people are poor. He siad that 40% of the people are for migration. According to him, the wealth of the former president Robert Kocharyan is equal to the 55-60% of the GDP. He also said that the government has spoilt the education system as well and now the schools are in extremely bad situation. ”The leaders of this country, the grasshoppers, are living their life like they are living the last day of their life. They are eating and embezzling everything in a manner like it is the last day of their life. The policy of these authorities is the following: the fewer people there are, the easier it will be to manage them. People, don’t leave form this country, don’t let these jackals eat everything, don’t help Serzh to do that,” petitioned Aram Manukyan.
ANC representative Davit Shahnazaryan mostly spoke about the settlement of Karabakh Conflict. He says that the foreign policy of Armenia is in a worse situation that the economic situation introduced by Aram Manukyan. He said that the process of Karabakh conflict settlement is getting much worse than ever, and the authorities are compromising big things. Concerning Azerbaijan’s decision to take the anti-Armenian bill out of the agenda of the UN, he said that the assurances of the authorities that it has been done due to their efforts are not true. He says that the authorities have compromised in order to convince them do that. “For the first time the co-chairmen of the OSCE MG used the word Khankendi with the name of Karabakh’s capital city Stepanakert. I think this is a serious compromise done by the authorities of Armenia. The second biggest compromise is that the international monitoring missions are allowed to visit the territory under Karabakh’s control. The ANC suggests to organize visits to the Armenian territories occupied by Azerbaijan in parallel with these visits as well. Azerbaijan continues to dominate and get more compromises. The Armenian authorities are ready to do everything and even the worse compromises to keep their power for one more day. They were mistaken in the Armenia-Turkey relations. We told them not to drink that water, otherwise they would become a lamb. They drank the water and they were mistaken. They are doing the same mistakes in relation to Karabakh,” said Mr. Shahnazaryan.
The head of the Republic party Aram Sargsyan spoke about the video recently posted in Youtube, which shows how an officer is humiliating soldiers and said, “The video is very bad and of course this man is not even an animal. We have met this kind of people on April 12, 2004, and March 1, 2009.” He also spoke about his party and the ANC and said that he does not think that the ANC does not have shortcomings. However, he says that it can unite 18 parties and become a serious alternative for change of the situation. He says that the authorities have lost their hope of reproduction and now they rely on Russia and they hope Russia will help them to keep the power. He believes a man, who came to power through violations, does not have the right to execute an agreement for 49 years with Russia. He says it means that they don’t believe in their powers and cannot protect their own country themselves. “These people are ready to agree the interests and even sometimes underestimate the interests of their own country till 2044. I am for equal relations with all countries of the world, including Russia, but we should build a democratic country first of all,” said Aram Sargsyan.
The PPA leader Stepan Demirchyan said that there is not justice and no jobs in Armenia. A group of hungry people are embezzling and playing with the destiny of people. He believes our country needs extraordinary elections and these elections should be organized as soon as possible. “Extraordinary elections are not done for our purposes; all we want is to stop election violations. The negative results of violated elections may be neutralized only through fair elections. It is impossible to neutralize the negative results of violated elections by speaking about dialogue all the time or establishing new institutions such as the public chamber,” said Stepan Demirchyan.
As always, the last part of the rally was left for Ter-Petrosyan’s speech. Besides speaking of a number of issues he assured that the incumbent authorities will leave sooner than the end of their tenure. “I have no doubts that Serzh Sargsyan will leave the power sooner than the end of his tenure. He can do that thing by being a sharp enemy with people or in some way in a reconciled situation. Of course the best option for him and people would be the second option. Otherwise our country is having a lot of losses and it may be irreversible. From now on our struggle is entering another phase of sharp and targeted struggling, which will be the notion of the end of its victory. The next national rally of the Congress will take place on October 15. My speech at that rally will be dedicated to one of the most shameful and worst appearances in our reality, i.e. corruption, which collapses our country and throws people into a poor state. In October the Congress is going to organize a number of other events as well,” announced the first president.
ANC coordinator Levon Zurabyan informed of the future steps to be taken. Thus, on September 21 they will organize an event dedicated to the 19th anniversary of Armenia’s independence at the monument of Saryan. On October 1, 4 days before the PACE monitoring session they will organize a march with a demand for extraordinary elections. On October 19 and 20 the European Union will organize an event in Armenia dedicated to democracy, during which the ANC will hold a rally as well. The next rally of the ANC will be organized on October 15.