The recent rumors concerning the possible cooperation between ADP and NU were spread mainly by the offices of those parties since the members of those parties don’t like that idea and are concerned about the possible cooperation. This is the reason why neither of those parties has published information so far whether they will collaborate during the upcoming elections or not.
The members of ADP don’t believe that their leader, Stepan Demirchyan may forget the fact that in 2003 he had almost become a public leader and Artashes Geghamyan let him down and didn’t agree to help him during the elections. The members of ADP also can’t believe that after those things their leader can enter into dialogue with Artashes Geghamyan. Definitely this is the reason why the members of ADP have published this information for the purpose of preventing that possible cooperation by discovering their confidential meetings and negotiations. According to our information, the members of ADP are afraid that in critical situations Geghamyan may give up on them again and let them down. In a word, they think that Geghamyan is very unpredictable.
As for the members of NU, they don’t want to collaborate with ADP, but with “Rule of Law” (RL) since they believe that Geghamyan and Arthur Baghdasaryan can collaborate more successfully. However, Geghamyan does not think so and according to our information he believes that during the upcoming elections Demirchyan will agree to advocate and support him, which he thinks that Baghdasaryan will not do. Geghamyan does not want to have such partners in politics that won’t sacrifice their candidacy for him.
This is the main reason why Geghamyan recently announced that their party was actively negotiating with ADP on collaborating during the upcoming parliamentary elections. “You are right. However, the discussions with ADP were targeted firstly to collaboration aimed to controlling the electoral processes, preventing violations and making sure that the elections are democratic and fair” said Artashes Geghamyan to “Azatutyun”. As for ADP, concerning the mentioned rumors and announcement they informed that they hadn’t had any negotiations to participate in the elections together with NU.
Indeed former NU member and existing member of ADP Hmayak Hovhannisyan said a very interesting thing concerning those rumors. He believes that if NU and ADP join each other, their cooperation will not last long and their alliance will collapse soon. He says that the reason is not only the ambitions of the leaders of those parties. “I don’t think that they can’t collaborate due to their ambitions only. The reason is what Artashes Geghamyan did during the second round of the presidential elections of 2003. Just following the first round Geghamyan accused Demirchyan in taking his votes together with the authorities and blocking his way to the second round” says Hmayak Hovhannisyan, “Besides that Geghamyan’s relations with Karen Demirchyan in the past can be a barrier as well; before the second round of the presidential elections of 1998 he openly acted against him. Also, just after the terror in the parliament on October 27 he managed to speak about the Generals. It was not good of him since everybody knew that Vazgen Sargsyan did not like him. The problem is the fact that Vazgen Sargsyan did not want Kocharyan to appoint Geghamyan in the mayor’s position since Geghamyan advocated Kocharyan before the second turn of the presidential elections and after that тоо. In other words, the contradictions are so deep that if Geghamyan does not recant, their cooperation will not take place and will collapse very soon if there is any”. Hmayak Hovhannisyan thinks that Stepan Demirchyan has not forgotten all thоse things and hasn’t forgotten either what Geghamyan did with Karen Demirchyan when he was alive. “They should work the contradictions out; otherwise people will think that they cheat each other. Generally I think that it is impossible to develop close cooperation between them” believes Hmayak Hovhannisyan.