On April 28 “New Times” party (NT) will organize a rally called “Rally against illegal intimidation by police in the political life of the country” not far from the Matenadaran. Later after the mentioned rally they are going to walk down to the buildings of the RA police and National Security Service (NSS) boards. The NT has applied to the municipality and gotten permission for this rally. We wonder why they want to organize a rally against the police and whether it is not strange that the municipality allows them to do so. With this in mind, we talked to the head of the NT, Aram Karapetyan.
-There is nothing surprising about it. Soon I am going to publish an open letter addressed to the NSS head Gorik Hakobyan where I will ask all the questions that I have for him. I want to show to the public how the NSS interferes in political activities of our party when its strategy isn’t about that at all, of course if these rallies are not conducted in violation of the law. After I get the answers to my questions I will publish all the information that I have. Today the authorities order the police and other power bodies to do what they want, but I think it is wrong of them to do that. I understand that Gorik Hakobyan was not interested in my private life and was obliged and he was ordered to find something for them to harm my reputation.
– What do you mean by saying that he was interested in your private life?
– I mean everything: checking up on me at the airport, asking with whom I sleep, when and what I do elsewhere. With the help of a politician they spread rumors and checked my accounts at “Unibank” to find out how much money I had received, etc. I also want to ask them whether they have sent an agent to the NT and tried to divide the party from the inside by using financial resources. No one is allowed to enter the private life and political activities of a person because it is a violation of the law. And later, when the authorities step down from power, everything will be published and they will get the payback.
– The oppositional powers and you have always been speaking about change of power, and now you say again that there will be a change. What do you have to say about this?
– All the processes going on with the Karabakh conflict and Iran are force-major. The existing authorities have given so many contradicting promises that sooner or later there will be conflict of interests between the governmental powers. I think time has come: if Aliev manages or does not manage to arrange something on April 28, this process will still go on. I think that Bush hasn’t invited him to the US by chance, especially since he is considered to be a pro-Russian non-democratic leader. I am sure this visit is connected with the problems of Karabakh and Iran. The problem is that they want Armenia to return the occupied territories, and it is a pity, but they want us to return all the seven regions. And if Armenia agrees to allocate international peacekeeping troops there, we will have problems with Russia and Iran, and if not – with the US. Political figures are keeping quiet for the time being because they are all hoping that the document will be signed till the beginning of June. And I think that the rumors after the visit of Frid to Armenia, when he said that international troops will be located in Karabakh, are accurate. And in this case it is clear that Iran will not like the idea of allocating international peacekeeping troops in its Northern territories and will take certain steps. The president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmedinejat, will visit Azerbaijan and Iranians will arrange everything with Azerbaijan easier than with Armenia. The Armenian authorities have brought themselves to a geopolitical deadlock. And in this situation I am sure that each force-major condition can bring to new overtime elections.
– What do you think, will Kocharyan resign in such a case or will he do his best to keep his position and find someone to substitute his position?
– In all the CIS countries that had overtime elections the authorities did their best to bring up someone from their team to substitute them. Armenia is far from democracy like the other CIS countries. And I think they will do their best to bring up their own candidate. There is another interesting thing here too: Kocharyan is not sure that the next president brought up by them will be loyal to them and will not let him down, that is why he wants to stay in the political elite and work as prime minister later on. He is not sure whether Serj Sargsyan will not take his property after being elected president. But I am sure of one thing: the processes that are going on will lead to overtime elections and the opposition will then come to power.
– But in spite of that recently you said that the most possible candidate for the president’s position is Serj Sargsyan.
– I said that he is the most possible candidate from the governmental powers. Currently the authorities have four possible candidates from the governmental elite: Vardan Oskanyan, Felix Tsolakyan, Arthur Baghdasaryan and Serj Sargsyan. Arthur Baghdasaryan is losing his positions day by day. As for Felix Tsolakyan and Vardan Oskanyan, they don’t have enough governmental resources to win the competition. So I think that the most possible candidate is Serj Sargsyan, but he has a big problem: the existing governmental powers and people don’t like him. So, in case of conducting democratic elections the existing authorities will lose for sure. They will have to do only one thing: use their power. But I think next time they will not be able to use power, because in that case they will have to directly shoot people. Besides that, different geopolitical powers are suspicious of the existing authorities. If they want they can bring up such facts that after that they will feel ashamed to even nominate their candidacy. If a part of their businesses is either in Russia or in the US, this means that they depend on these countries. I think it was not by chance that Raffi Hovhannisyan sent 21 questions to the president.
– So whom will the geopolitical powers that you said advocate?
– Personally I think that Russians will target on Aram Karapetyan. As for the US, I think Americans will look for someone that will apply their main ideology regardless of whether he has pro-Russian approach or not, and these ideologies are democracy, free market and specific approach to Armenians living in the US. I think the US has already picked their candidate.
– Who is he?
– I don’t know. But I think that if there are no political processes going on at the moment, then that means that they have already made a decision. They show that this person is not a governmental candidate.