“It’s impossible to see the same authorities come to power in Armenia. Both the parliamentarian and presidential elections in Armenia will take place in 2007,” said head of the ANM administration Ararat Zurabyan during an interview.
According to Zurabyan, no matter if the authorities take part in the 2007 elections together or alone, they will only get 10-15 percent votes.
“The rest of the votes will be based on fraud. If there is no electoral fraud, then that will mean that the authorities are surrendering voluntarily because the legally elected parliamentarians will demand that Robert Kocharyan resign. If there is electoral fraud, then I am certain that the people will no longer put up with that and will take the path that, for example, Georgia took. So, in both cases, the current authorities will lose power,” says the ANM administration head.
However, let’s note that the people revolted the same way after the electoral fraud during the 2003 presidential and parliamentarian elections. There were 150-200,000 people gathered in front of the Matenadaran in Yerevan. But there was no change in power due to the opposition’s indecisive steps. So, I asked Mr. Zurabyan what guarantees there are that the same thing won’t happen this time and who is going to lead the movement this time.
“I think that the ANM will lead the movement along with the other strong parties,” he said.
So, it turns out that the ANM has not only decided to take part in the upcoming elections, but also to lead the struggle in case of need, especially when there are many rumors going around that the first president of Armenia Levon Ter-Petrosyan may come to power again.
“The time has come to end referring to the ANM because the people know who has done what for the society,” says Zurabyan.
But these days, there are new placements among the authorities and the opposition is doing nothing. Is it possible to fight against the authorities that have control of administrative and financial resources?
“The administrative resource has belonged to the authorities for the past eight years and the replacement of powers won’t play a huge role because they don’t work together in a pivotal time. As for the financial resources, unfortunately, they keep growing. But I think that the administrative and financial resources aren’t enough to have the same authorities come to power. If those two resources ever played a major role, then there would never be a change of power in any country,” says Zurabyan.
Recently, ARF MP Alvart Petrosyan felt pity that the ANM doesn’t take part in the debates when it really is an oppositional power.
“The political debate could go well with the ANM,” says Alvart Petrosyan and adds that she appreciates the high level of education and intellectuality of ANM members. However, Petrosyan believes that the ANM will have to “beg for forgiveness” to return to the active political life.
In regard to Petrosyan’s comments, Zurabyan said that only time values the amount and type of sins committed by each person.
“I understand what she’s aiming for-to separate from the authorities and try to look as progressive as possible. As for the separate parts of the conference, I can say that Alvart Petrosyan isn’t wrong when talking about certain issues. The Armenian National Movement assures that despite all the obstacles created by the authorities, we will obligate the ARF and the rest of the governmental parties to get into a political debate. I am certain that time will come soon,” said A. Zurabyan.
Zurabyan advises A. Petrosyan and her ARF colleagues to invite ANM members to a debate on “Yerkir-Media” television.
“We are ready to debate with any ARF member on live television about any topic and any given time. But I don’t want to keep thinking that the ARF, as a pro-government wing, is ready to talk about a debate but is never really ready to do that. There is no intellectuality of the ANM members stated by Petrosyan serving Robert Kocharyan. I don’t know one intellectual that serves someone who goes against humanism, morality and the law,” says Zurabyan and challenges the ARF to a debate.