The next president of Armenia will be partisan, if…

18/08/2006

During an interview with the “FRANCE-ARMENIE” magazine, Chairman of the National Assembly of Armenia Tigran Torosyan said that some countries, including Georgia, Armenia, Ukraine, Russia, Moldova, Serbia and Albania, are in a critical situation.

According to Torosyan, there are no democratic structures in these countries; however it’s very important to have those structures.

“Either those countries establish democratic structures, or they can get rid of them and turn into authoritarian states,” says the National Assembly speaker.

Torosyan also stated the fact that based on the information of some well-known international organizations, i.e. EBRD, Heritage Foundation, etc., Armenia has been progressing economically throughout the past years. Torosyan is of the opinion that the important thing here is that Robert Kocharyan came to power knowing very well about the issues and what he had to do.

“It was very crucial for the political parties supporting Kocharyan to fill in the blank of the political field and democracy because they are the ones with enough experience. I must say that they were unsuccessful,” said Torosyan.

The Chairman of the Armenian National Assembly believes that if the political parties realize what role they play and take steps towards solving the abovementioned issues, the next Armenian president will be partisan. In response to the question as to whether or not there is a worry over the fact that too many businessmen are members of the parliament, Torosyan said:

“If the presence of businessmen in the parliament is dangerous for the country, then Italy was supposed to perish from the face of the earth a long time ago (Italy was governed by a businessman, who had power over the mass media for many years).”

In regard to the “Rule of Law” party’s exclusion from the coalition, Torosyan said that “Rule of Law” felt that it needed to take one step back before the upcoming Armenian parliamentary elections and join the opposition, thus presenting itself as an oppositionist party.

“This is simply strategy,” said Chairman of the National Assembly of Armenia Tigran Torosyan.

R.T.