Perhaps it’s no secret that the Armenian authorities and the opposition don’t have high ratings in Armenia. Whereas usually administrative resources and experts in drawing numbers help raise the ratings of the authorities and as a result help them win the elections, at first sight the opposition is helpless. I say at first sight because recently, the person who took the initiative to lend a helping hand to the opposition during the election was… a pro-government activist.
Let’s recall that head of the Hanrapetakan (Armenian Republican Party) faction of the National Assembly Galust Sahakyan had declared that the pro-government powers must think about leaving some room for the opposition in the parliament, otherwise who needs a parliament when there is no opposition? After all, Armenia is a member of the European Council; we at least need to have two oppositionist deputies in the parliament, right? It’s interesting: how are the authorities going to help the opposition so that the oppositionists become members of the future parliament? Journalists were trying to find the answer to this from secretary of the Armenian Republican Party National Assembly faction Gagik Melikyan during a press conference at the “Hayeli” club on Wednesday. It turned out that the announcement of Galust Sahakyan was simply a joke.
“I think that you should already be quite familiar with Galust Sahakyan’s humor and he probably said that as a joke,” announced G. Melikyan.
According to Melikyan, the government will help make sure the upcoming parliamentary elections are conducted fairly and freely, but as each government official, G. Melikyan also said that everyone, including the opposition, is responsible for the conduct of free and fair elections.
Orinats Yerkir (“Rule of Law”) National Assembly faction representative Hovhannes Markaryan, who was also a guest speaker at the “Hayeli Club”, agreed with G. Melikyan in that “nobody should take G. Sahakyan’s words seriously.” During the press conference, G. Melikyan was forced to refer to the recent announcement made by leader of the United Labor Party (ULP) and the Armenian Republican Party’s coalitional party Gurgen Arsenyan, according to which Arsenyan is ready to distribute the majority of his votes to the Armenian Republican Party, the Bargavach Hayastan ( Prosperous Armenia) political party and the ARF.
“Give as much as people want,” said G. Arsenyan.
How much will the Armenian Republican Party want from the ULP? The Armenian Republican Party faction secretary had this to say in response to that.
“We don’t want anything from someone who has nothing.”
Whatever-both speakers announced during the press conference that neither of the parties is planning to form an alliance with the purpose of participating in the upcoming elections, although H. Markaryan didn’t exclude that that decision may change before the elections. The Armenian Republican Party representative announced that the number of their party members already exceeds 50,000, while the “Rule of Law” member claimed that when 10-15 people left the “Rule of Law” party back in May 2006, 50,000 people joined the party and the number went up to 85,000. As expected, Hovhannes Markaryan was criticizing the government and the privatization implemented by that same government, in response to which G. Melikyan told the journalists gathered to check and be convinced whether or not the “Rule of Law” faction had voted “in favor” of all the reports of privatization. H. Markaryan also claimed that “Rule of Law” party leader Arthur Baghdasaryan has not been deprived of television airtime for the past nine months. However, the calculations prove that nine months ago, Baghdasaryan was still Speaker of the National Assembly and surely he shouldn’t have had any problems with airtime. Journalists noticed that although “Rule of Law” always declares that the party is a public political power, the leader of the party isn’t really involved in public activities; Armenians only hear that he paid visits to this or that country. Why did he pay the visit? What’s he looking for abroad…? “Rule of Law”, which is such a public political party, has not given the answers to these questions yet. When one of the representatives of Alternative Mass Media (ALM) said that Tigran Karapetyan had invited Baghdasaryan to speak during a one-hour live program and he hadn’t accepted the invitation, the “Rule of Law” party member H. Markaryan remarked Arthur Baghdasaryan couldn’t make it that day and that they had informed Tigran Karapetyan about that. When the “Hayeli” club administration said that they were ready to call Arthur Baghdasaryan with any speaker of his choice for a debate, Markaryan said that he would propose to Baghdasaryan and if the latter finds time in his heavy schedule, he will most definitely accept the invitation.