Leader of the “New Times” political party Aram Karapetyan held a press conference on Monday upon his arrival from Moscow. He only raised a couple of questions during the press conference which he had promised to be startling and mainly criticized the Armenian opposition. But we’ll go step by step.
First, Karapetyan referred to the pro-government “Dashink” political party. Is it true that the driver of leader of “Dashink” political party was arrested for illegal use of a weapon? Is it true that leader of “Dashink” Samvel Babayan was prosecuted by the National Security Service? Is it true that his registration has moved to the Central Election Committee and that the committee “does not know whether they will register him as a candidate or not”? Karapetyan also talked about the fact that another person had been arrested for the murder of Shahen Hovasapyan. According to leader of “New Times”, there are rumors flying around among the “political elite” that the arrestee “is one of Armenia’s oligarchs, deputy Levon Sargsyan”. In fact, as he said that, Karapetyan threw dirt in Artashes Geghamyan’s face by saying that he had not heard those rumors in a cafe, but rather from the “political elite”.
“They arrested the Virabyans, then they released them and arrested “Aper”. Then they might arrest “Hayko”, then “Grishik”. You can’t understand how it all ends,” says Aram Karapetyan.
It should be noted that Karapetyan is presenting this in such a way that if, for example, the public prosecutors wish to sentence him for slander, they will not be able to because Karapetyan is not claiming anything. He is simply asking. Whatever…
Later, Karapetyan also threw dirt in Stepan Demirchyan’s face, saying that “there was a great chance in 2003 and if “New Times” was the leader, Armenians would be living in a totally different society now”. He assured that “New Times” is “getting ready to lead and go to the finish” and that the party is going to “lead the most active and probably most aggressive pre-electoral campaign against the authorities”. By “aggressive” he means that “they will promiscuously, in some cases argumentatively and in some cases at the ideological level, call all the authorities by their names”. In short, Karapetyan promises to teach the authorities a lesson which the opposition has been trying to do for a couple of years now.
“There will soon be a turn of events in Armenia,” says the leader of “New Times”.
According to Karapetyan, if enough people get out on the streets, then “the process will go on until the end”, but if not enough people come out, then the post-election processes will show what the situation will be in Armenia days before the presidential elections. “That is when we will have the battle of Avarayr in its entirety. Let’s see if we can make it to those elections,” he noted.
During the press conference on Monday, Karapetyan also expressed his disappointment in the work of journalists.
“You journalists create that situation too when many opposition representatives look back and get complexities. Each time you come to us and say ‘you said this, but you didn’t do it, you said that, but didn’t do it…’ Almost all the journalists say that without understanding that that is the order of the authorities. How can you, for example, give a car to the oppositionist without tires and expect him to drive it?” asks Karapetyan.
Karapetyan believes that you can’t keep making the opposition look back at the past. What can journalists do when many oppositionists that don’t respect the people who believe them and, in general, anyone who listens to them at that moment, say things which make it clear from the start that they are not going to become a reality? Imagine what would happen if the journalists did not say “you said this and did not do it”?
Karapetyan also discredited the “Alternative” NGO/political initiative.
“When “New Times” was conducting meetings and we had 1000 gatherers, the presses would write that there were 300 people or 50. When “Alternative” conducts a meeting, nobody comes. Why don’t you write that the people are not coming? Who said that there have to be 5 or 10,000 people every time? It’s politics, what do you expect? One thing that Artashes Geghamyan says is right and it is from the Bible: ‘Don’t judge to not be judged’. That also refers to Nikol Pashinyan,” mentioned Karapeytan who had publicly announced that he promised to participate in the public meetings of “Alternative”, but it appears as though he had not showed up. The leader of “New Times” also mentioned that the police officers are collecting the passports of residents of the Erebuni, Malatia-Sebastia and Central districts of Yerevan “so that those people can vote in favor of this or that political party”.
“Conflicts take place among representatives of different political parties. As a result of those conflicts, according to our sources, after what happened in Erebuni, approximately 6-7 people are now in the isolation cell,” said Karapetyan.
Let us recall that rumor has it that recently there was a dispute in the Erebuni district between representatives of the Republican and Prosperous Armenia political parties. Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Vardan Oskanyan was also criticized by Aram Karapetyan. As known, Oskanyan likes to “justify” the failures of Armenian diplomacy by the “wrong translation” of the given document. During the press conference on Monday, Karapetyan advised the journalists to find a good translator and send him to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and promised to pay that translator well.
“Let them translate well so we can know what they wrote about us. Whenever something is not right, they say that it was due to the wrong translation,” noted Aram Karapetyan.