The united opposition held its last meeting of the year near the Matenadaran. As president of the “Republic” political party Aram Z. Sargsyan stated in his speech, the opposition will not stop the fight and the next public meeting will take place on January 27, 2006.
As expected, there were once again few people at the public meeting yesterday. But despite the heavy rain, the majority of the participants and the opposition members (besides president of the “New Times” political party Aram Karapetyan and his followers who had stood below the arches near the Matenadaran) were standing and making speeches without any umbrellas. After his speech, president of the National Democratic Union Vazgen Manukyan approached journalists and tried to remember how many public meetings there had been during the years of the Armenian National Movement in the rain; however, he couldn’t come up with an exact number. President of the “Republic” political party Aram Z. Sargsyan thanked the “dear people” in the beginning of his speech for coming to the meeting despite the heavy rain. He said the following with the help of the opposition: “get wet until you are soaking wet.” “Show me one person who will stand in the pouring rain just to meet with the president’s on duty correspondent. There is no such person not only for the president, but also for the authorities. This means that the people are with the opposition,” said Aram Sargsyan. Political secretary of the “Heritage” political party Vartan Khachatryan listed the names of people during his speech who had taken part in the “Civil Requisition of the people” written and handed in to the president on December 9 by Raffi Hovhannisyan. The people listed are mainly well-known intellectuals, cultural, public and political figures. As stated by president of the “Heritage” political party Raffi Hovhannisyan, they are going to keep asking questions until they get some answers. As for leader of the National Democratic Union (NDU) Vazgen Manukyan, he believes that we are going towards a labyrinth while solving any issue with the present day authorities. But the cynicism and coward acts during the referendum “closed all doors” for us. According to president of the “Republic” political party Aram Sargsyan, the referendum of November 27 proved that Armenia as a republic has crossed all limits both in foreign and internal politics. The fraud going on during the referendum on November 27 was evident and made a lot of noise; much more than the fraud caused by the revolutions in Georgia and Ukraine. Now, Aram Sargsyan claims that there will be replacements in the authority triangle as well as within the opposition. “I can already see the replacements in the authorities. New people want to create new political parties which can support the present day authorities in the future. Some of those political parties express different opinions about the referendum on November 27,” said Aram Sargsyan. The same replacements are being made among opposition members. “There are political parties that believe that everything can be solved through the evolutionary way. There are political parties, groups of people who are certain that nothing can be solved in Armenia through the evolutionary method. I guarantee you that in January, whichever side gets accepted by the people and shows its preparedness, that side will win the other,” said Aram Sargsyan. The latter denies the fact that both presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan are on a mission to solve the Karabagh conflict together and that they must stay in power until the Karabagh peace settlement is over. “That is a lie; that is impossible. The people don’t accept any serious or unserious thing proposed by the authorities, so we can’t solve the Karabagh conflict through the means of the authorities.”
Mr. Sargsyan informed the people that there are special groups which are going to be involved in forming a civil society and called on the people present to join those groups and be present at the meeting on January 27 already with the “list of individuals and citizens of the fourth republic.” So, the promised change of power moved to next year.