Yesterday “Justice” alliance “attacked” Artur Baghdasaryan by telling him to bring up his announcements stating that there were violations during the referendum.
In order to imagine the situation there it is worth to mention that politician Hmayak Hovhannisyan was there too (these days he keeps “Rule of law” in the center of their attention). The representatives of “Justice” alliance argued to found a commission to find out who the violators were and punish them. The other members of “Rule of law” kept silence and were alienated from these discussions by saying that Artur Baghdasaryan was the reason for this active discussion and he was the one to go out of this situation. As for Artur Baghdasaryan, he was trying to assure oppositionists that they’d better send the registered facts to the general public prosecutor’s office instead of founding a commission. He also tied to make oppositionists calm down by saying: “If you mean the political estimations, take into account that the EU observers said that generally, the referendum had been organized in compliance with the international standards, but there were serious violations too. As the NA chairman, I agree with you that those people that served the authorities as “a bear” didn’t have to do that, there was no need for that. Generally I don’t agree with these kinds of things and I think violators must be punished on the base of the law. I think the authorized bodies must do their work and punish violators. For me it is clear that this amended Constitution is positive. Now we must speak about legal solutions. If there are people who argue, we must solve this problem by law”, -said Artur Baghdasaryan. He also said that he was going to send a letter to the RA general prosecutor and include all registered facts and violations that were of his concern. “I suppose they will investigate the registered cases and punish violators. My two estimations are political: I think the Constitution was brought up and as well as there were a lot of serious violations. And all people that are interested in punishing violators must join us to fight against this”, -said Arthur Baghdasaryan. He also said that these violations were done by people that wanted to serve the authorities as a “bear” did. Then Hmayak Hovhannisyan announced: “In spite of your opinion I appreciate the estimation of our NA chairman more than the estimation of international observers. They are not the people that are interested in this referendum; we are interested in it ourselves. These “bears” didn’t let people normally take part in the referendum. People were not sure that the referendum would not be violated, but it is very dangerous to undermine it. This is accusing Robert Kocharyan too. Did he have to start his activities with the help of these “bears” and back this kind of referendum?” Some people in the hall said that in order to solve the problem, they had to catch and punish the “bear”. “This paradoxical “bear” is “Rule of law”, Mr. Baghdasaryan, we have to punish “Rule of law” ”, -said H. Hovhannisyan. Grigor Harutyunyan blamed them for this situation too and asked: “Don’t you think that there were a lot of violations? Don’t you think that this fraud affected the reputation of our country? Don’t you think that we have to found a parliamentary commission to investigate these violations and punish the people that played with the reputation of our country? Or don’t you think that most of the NA powers served like a bear themselves? Don’t you think that about 2000 members of your party were defending your interests in electoral commissions and they made this fraud and these violations themselves? Most of the NA members are sitting here with quiet faces. Note that this fraud started from right here”.
Arthur Baghdasaryan didn’t say anything concerning these questions, but instead of this he told them that NA commissions didn’t have a right to punish anyone and that those people that wanted to institute legal proceedings they could give him the registered facts and he would present it to the general prosecutor. “The body that is to punish is the prosecutor’s office. As the NA chairman I am calling on everyone to give me any facts of violations and I will put these facts together with the facts that I have and will send them to the prosecutor’s office. They have to find those people who are guilty of these violations and punish them. Give those facts to me and I will send them”, -said Arthur Baghdasaryan. We asked Aram G. Sarkisyan whether he liked this idea of Arthur Baghdasaryan and he said: “We know very well where the prosecutor’s office is. They have participated in organizing these violations themselves too. We made a political offer to the coalition. If they agree that there were serious violations and they have taken this responsibility on them, they have to found a commission to investigate and punish these violators. They refused our offer by saying that they agreed to send the registered cases to the prosecutor’s office”. According to Mr. Sarkisyan, the coalition had to be interested in investigating the issue of the Constitutional legitimacy in the Constitutional court so to let the Constitutional court consider this offer and present their decision. “If the issue were developed in the Constitutional court and then closed there, this would be the end and would comply with the situational developments. But they failed to do this. In other words they agreed that there have been violations and fraud, and if there have been violations and no one knows any details about that, this means that this Constitution was passed illegally”, -said Aram G. Sarkisyan. Head of ARF Vahan Hovhannisyan thinks that this offer concerns only “Rule of law” and says: “They haven’t offered us anything. I think those powers to which they made suggestions will join them”. To our question as to whether ARF would give their registered facts to Arthur Baghdasaryan to send to the prosecutor’s office, Vahan Hovhannisyan answered: “They had to present the facts to the CEC at first. They failed to do so. Now all political powers may have their own facts. If we find facts of course we will give them our facts too”. As for republicans, they don’t want to take part in this process at all.
Yesterday the oppositionists said that they were going to collect signatures and in case of providing the adequate number (44) they would make the NA discuss this issue. But A. Sarkisyan said that they were not going to take on the responsibility to organize this process, but they would give their signatures to whoever organizes this process. “If Hmayak Hovhannisyan starts to collect signatures we will appreciate that, but “Justice” alliance will not do that”, -said A. Sarkisyan. Yesterday Hmayak Hovhannisyan (he is always happy to organize anything that is against “Rule of law”) told us that it was his pleasure to start organizing this process and promised to do that within 24 hours in accordance with the law. “Sure I will do that. I am waiting for the right moment to do that. They will not be able to escape this time. I will win this struggle”, -threatened H. Hovhannisyan.