The Heritage party will abstain from participating in the activities of the joint public oversight headquarters if the leaders of the four political parties don’t sign the statement of joint oversight.
Yesterday during the discussion of the format of this headquarters the member of the Heritage Party Ruben Hakobyan reiterated this stance of the party and left shortly. Let us remember that a week ago the representatives of the Heritage, ARF, Prosperous Armenia and the ANC Ruben Hakobyan, Armen Rustamyan, Vardan Oskanyan and Levon Zurabyan signed a statement about the establishment of a joint oversight headquarters to monitor the process of elections. After signing the statement various representatives of the Heritage started to announce that they’d join the headquarters on two conditions. First they’ll join if the memorandum is signed by the leaders of the four political parties and second, if the headquarters starts to discuss the matters regarding the charity actions and election bribery cases before and after the launch of the official campaign. The second condition is going to be included on the agenda of the future headquarters and the latter is established for that purpose. As of the signature of the leaders of parties then the representatives of the three parties present at yesterday’s discussion were not able to understand the necessity of doing so. It wasn’t unclear why the Heritage would demand the first condition because whoever is included in the headquarters and nominated by the party leaders and the latter are well-aware of the functions and activities of the headquarters and thus gave their consent to it. Hakobyan explained the demand with the fact that the establishment of the joint headquarters contradicts the nature of the ruling coalition memorandum, which was also signed by Gagik Tsarukyan. The declaration has already stipulated the proportion of political representation in the next parliament. According to Hakobyan it would be illogical that the party signs both of the memorandums. Besides that, for the Heritage member it is not acceptable that the ANC’s main target of criticism is the RPA. In his opinion, all the three coalition parties are jointly accountable for the government failures. After Hakoyan’s statement the rest of the political party members have been to explain that this headquarters is also going to examine the cases of charity initiated by the PA as well. “Even if they have the goal of falsifying then it’s going to be very difficult for them during this period because we are going to supervise each other. Let us not split into camps at this point. They say, don’t judge not to get judged. Let’s guide with this logic. We all have many vulnerable things and if we start to criticize each other we won’t be able to move forward. Let’s find the general starting point and let’s reduce our ambitions for the sake of this idea. Let’s put aside the party benefits and let’s guide with the general benefit,” suggest the representative of the ARF Armen Rustamyan. Rustamyan also presented a few points, which formulated the goals and mission of the headquarters. And one of the goals of the headquarters was formulated based on the demands of the Heritage party – “conduct oversight of the whole election process, thoroughly study all the cases of bribery, use of governmental resources for campaigning purposes and other cases of illegal code of conduct.” Later, they decided that there is the necessity to create a committee within the headquarters to be in charge of this. Oskanyan and Zurabyan agreed with this statement. As of the signature of the leaders of parties Oskanyan said that he was authorized to do so both by the party and the leader of the party Gagik Tsarukyan. The latter also added that much more important documents and international declarations are signed in the world without the participation of the leaders of countries but by their authorized representatives. Finally, the ceasefire of the NKR war wasn’t signed by the leaders of countries but by the defense ministries. Rustamyan also found this demand meaningless and added that all the conditions and pre-conditions, which hinder this process are not acceptable by them. “I have already signed that there is no problem with the signature of the leaders. Let’s move forward and not whirl in the same spot. We don’t have much time anyways. Elections aren’t behind mountains… For me it’s not that important what political stances the mentioned political party had in the past. We are on the way to elections and if they are interested in the conduct of free and fair elections let them prove this with their actions,” he stated. “If I should go get Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s signature but not Ter-Petrosyan himself he’ll be willing to sign under the document. So aim saying this on his behalf. But the problem is that we don’t see the necessity of signing any new document. I don’t understand what he should sign. The decision is made and the strategic plan is made; all we have to do is proceed and act. We fully accept ARF’s offer. We are willing to be fully involved in the activities of the new headquarters,” added Levon Zurabyan. And Rustamyan added that they can also present the signature of their leader. Oskanyan said that he wasn’t ready to say anything for sure until he discusses this with Gagik Tsarukyan. “If the PA is not represented here will you be satisfied? I don’t want to ban this joint action. If you think you can do it without us then we are ready to leave and support you from outside. The PA will invest so many human and technical resources to fight against election violations that you will be surprised,” Oskanyan addressed Hakobyan. Yesterday the mentioned politicians have tried to find out whether the Heritage was going to participate in the activities of the headquarters. Hakobyan answered that they would if their conditions are taken into account. Afterwards he took off. Yesterday, when commenting on this stance of the Heritage a PA member Naira Zohrabyan mentioned, “If Mr. Oskanyan joined the memorandum then he was authorized by Gagik Tsarukyan. It couldn’t be any other way in our party. If certain parties chant about democracy and don’t exercise democracy within their parties and only the signature of the leader matters then they should know that we truly exercise democracy in our party and if Oskanyan gave his signature it means that he has the authority to do so in the name of the party and the leader.” Zohrabyan also said that if the Heritage is trying to draw out from the agreement and the memorandum then bringing unsubstantiated conditions and demands is not a very good idea at this point. “The motivation of such a behavior is clear to all of us and it’s clear where the state orders of criticism to PA are coming from,” she added. Let us mention that yesterday after the departure of Ruben Hakobyan, Rustamyan even joked by saying that the “representation is being crystallized.” The political field seemingly is split into two parts. On one side we have the RPA and the Legal State, which didn’t join the activities of the oversight headquarters. The Heritage participates in the activities of the NA monitoring group but doesn’t agree to join the headquarters. Moreover, it seems that the Heritage party has taken on the power of the RPA to urge the PA orient whether it’s going to stay with the coalition or be on its own. Besides that the criticism of the RPA, Heritage and the Legal State is addressed to the ANC. And it seems that the interests of the three parties match in the fight against the ANC and PA. It seems that the Heritage has an issue to fail the activities of this oversight headquarters. Even if all the other parties agree to all the demands of this party they will nonetheless find some reason to abstain. Besides that the recent behavior of the Heritage is worrisome and dubious. Only time will show what kind of game the Heritage or Ruben Hakobyan are trying to play.
P.S. Yesterday Rustamyan informed that the ARF had decided that Spartak Seyranyan and Hamlet Abrahamyan will be included in the oversight headquarters. The latter is also the ARF representative in the CEC. The ANC and the PA haven’t yet decided who will be in that headquarters from their parties.