It is kind of hard to mention one Armenian political party where there have not been any interior political conflicts during the past couple of years. Some parties have even split as a result of those conflicts. It seemed as though the most closed and most organized political party in the political field of Armenia-the Armenian Revolutionary Federation-did not suffer from that. During the past couple of weeks, there were rumors going around among political activists that not everything within the party is going at a smooth pace. There were especially talks on the open conflict between ARF Bureau representative Hrant Margaryan and head of the ARF Supreme Body Mikael Manukyan. This is a particular case in that the two belong to the so-called coordinating wing of force structures of the ARF. In fact, despite having substructures, the current 8th place runner in the ARF proportional electoral list Mikael Manukyan used to be under Hrant Margaryan’s name. Political activists say that the conflict is not so much political as it is business-oriented. H. Margaryan and M. Manukyan run a joint business which is the “Meghedi” cafe located in central Yerevan.
