On July 19, one day after launching the dialogue between the authorities and ANC opposition power, representative of the ANC delegation Davit Harutyunyan was hosted by Urvagits TV show of Kentron TV channel. One day before that, on July 18, the same TV show hosted the head of the governmental delegation for dialogue Davit Harutyunyan.
It was not by chance that the representative of the ANC was invited to this TV show because on the first day of the dialogue the ANC made an announcement calling on the authorities to provide equal opportunities and access to the media. The ANC also recommended to broadcast the process of negotiations, or an alternative could be enabling the members of the delegations to speak in the media from time to time. In answer to this announcement the representatives of the authorities said that the media is nothing without opposition. Definitely this is the first step following the mentioned announcement and that is why D. Shahnazaryan had the opportunity to have access to TV. However, his announcements on the air of Kentron TV first of all surprised the representatives of the opposition. Specifically, he said that till 2007 the opposition in Armenia was a “pocket opposition”. Everyone took it as a hint concerning the PPA’s chairman Stepan Demirchyan and the president of Republic party Aram Z. Sargsyan, who are key players in the opposition now as well. According to our information, following this TV show there was a very uncomfortable situation in the Congress. Specifically, Stepan Demirchyan asked for clarification from the ANC leader Levon Ter-Petrosyan, which was followed by an interview and clarification taken from Davit Shahnazaryan by lragir.am . In the latest interview Davit Shahnazaryan rephrased what he had said and said that he had meant the Legal State party by saying “pocket opposition”. We talked to Felix Khachatryan, who is a member of the PPA and also the opposition’s delegation in charge of dialogue with the authorities, who told us that they had felt very pity about the mentioned announcement, but later Davit Shahnazaryan clarified what he had said and said that he meant the chairman of LS party, who was dismissed from the NA speaker’s position and was forced to act in the political sector as opposition power for the purpose of preventing the PPA from entering the parliament. It is also surprising why they consider others as opposition because since 2003 it has been considered that the main opposition leaders and activists were Stepan Demirchyan and Aram Z. Sargsyan. We asked Felix Khachatryan whether it was not a weak justification because it doesn’t matter if the LS was forced to act in the opposition but still it was not considered by people as real opposition, in answer to which he said, “True, I think so”. In answer to the question whether PPA is satisfied with this interview to an electronic source because the audience of the TV show was much larger he said, “To be honest we are not satisfied, but if the man has accepted that he has been mistaken, that’s fine… Personally I have been CEC member till August 7, 2007, and everyone knows how I behaved myself there. Who can ever tell that I am a pocket opposition or do favors to the government? I have struggled till the last day. I think Davit Shahnazaryan said that under the influence of the moment. Of course we reacted to it very fast and just the next day he corrected his mistake. We asked him whether he understood what he said, and he replied that he was sorry and he did not mean that”.
Davit Shahnazaryan told us during our conversation that in his interview he said all what he wanted to say. Specifically, he said the following: “In 2006 the authorities started to get prepared for the parliamentary elections 2007 and presidential election 2008 by replacing the NA speaker and forcing the former speaker to the opposition sector (it concerns Arthur Baghdasaryan and his LS party – lragir.am). This is what I meant. It was very simple as by doing that the authorities were trying to prevent the access of PPA, Republic and ANM parties to the parliament as they understood that the real winner during the elections of 2003 was the PPA.” In answer to question who Shahnazaryan had meant as during those times the core opposition activists were considered to be Stepan Demirchyan and Aram Z. Sargsyan he said, “I told the Lragir what I had meant. At that time the pocket opposition that had been created and was being managed by the authorities was Legal State party”.
By the way, on September 8, 2007, during a press-conference at Azdak club Davit Shahnazaryan raised a couple of oratory questions, which compared the authorities and the opposition. With this action Shahnazaryan tried to show that if there were no drastic changes in the opposition, they would lose because the opposition had accepted the rules of the authorities. “Who is more transparent? The opposition or the government? Which one of these two powers does commit more violations and fraud? Which one of these two powers does make contradicting announcements more?” asked Davit Shahnazaryan and said that the society should answer to these questions. This means that Davit Shahnazaryan’s recent announcement would not be criticized so much if he had not made similar announcements against the main opposition powers till 2007 before that too. Now let’s wait for the next TV show to see what ANC representatives will speak about. It seems that the authorities are embracing the ANC’s demand for another TV show.