The “ARMAT” civic/political organization, headed by former speaker of NA Hrant Bagratyan, is trying to mobilize the oppositional liberal powers. It is difficult to say whether they will be successful or not because there have been several similar attempts before and they failed due to the the ambitions of the leaders.
It is evident that oppositional parties will try to come up with a common ideology and form alliances before the upcoming elections. Currently, there is a vacuum in the field of liberal ideologies and the opposition is given an opportunity to occupy that vacuum and not let the governmental powers occupy that field too. Currently the society can differentiate between parties and political powers only due to their governmental and oppositional approach. Now it is time for parties to show themselves with the help of their ideology.
Representatives of “ARMAT” don’t say anything concerning their meetings and do their best to keep that information confidential. According to our information, they often organize discussions on the foreign and internal policies of our country. Moreover, they have prepared documents as a result of those discussions.
The only important thing that we know about that is the fact that recently, those discussions are held with leader of “Republic” party, Aram Sargsyan. According to our information, recently they held a discussion on who the leader was going to be during the coming campaign period and decided that the leader would be Aram Sargsyan. Some small parties didn’t like that idea and protested. Currently the “Republic” party keeps silent again and does not say anything.
It is worth mentioning that “Armenian National Movement” (ANM) party does not take part in those discussions because they have a clash of interests with the “ARMAT”. Executive secretary of ANM, Vahagn Hayotsyan says that they don’t have any conflicts with the “ARMAT”. ““ARMAT” is the same thing as the ANM, and from this view the ANM does not have to join the ANM. It is the same as to say that the ANM may join its headquarters”, says Vahagn Hayotsyan and notes that three ANM board members are members of “ARMAT” too. As for the rumors concerning their meetings and the fact that they keep that information confidential, he says that it is too early to talk about that. In regard to our note that despite the active changes in governmental parties they were passive he said, “They worry about keeping their power and that is the reason why they make so many changes. As we have been the ruling power too, we have that experience too, and from this view please note that what they’re doing is not promising”. As the governmental powers are trying to recruit small liberal parties, we asked Mr. Hayotsyan whether they didn’t worry about that fact. “”We don’t have to worry because everything that is phony cannot be successful. They can’t create phony oppositional and liberal powers,” assures Mr. Hayotsyan.