During a press conference at the “Hayeli” club on Friday, leader of the “Country of Law” political party Arthur Baghdasaryan assured that they don’t want “an election of money and obligation, rather an election of the soul and conscience.”
“Some people are doing “whatever they want” with the law. Our country needs laws, rights and justice,” announced Baghdasaryan.
Perhaps we would take what Baghdasaryan said seriously if he were to have made the same announcement a year ago. The then National Assembly speaker didn’t even notice that the opposition wasn’t on television, that some people (including many who had appeared in parliament by fitting in the “Country of Law” party) had done “whatever they wanted” with the laws, etc.
“It is better to have 100 people own one store, than to have one person own 100 stores,” said Baghdasaryan and presented some of the propositions stated in the “Country of Law” political platform.
“In our education section, we say that each child must study two foreign languages and computer basics starting from the first grade.”
Let us recall that psychologists didn’t even advise children to attend school at the age of 5 or 5 and a half, much less learn two foreign languages and computer basics at the same time. Whatever the case, Arthur Baghdasaryan is certain that his political party will have a “heavy presence” in the future parliament, heavier than in 2003. The “Country of Law” leader also announced on Friday that they are receiving letters of warnings.
“We receive different kinds of letters. For example, after a meeting yesterday, I received a letter which read the following: “Be Careful”. That’s it, nothing else,” he said. Baghdasaryan does not agree with the evaluations that the elections have already been falsified.
“How can you say that the elections have been falsified when the elections haven’t even taken place yet?” asked the “Country of Law” party leader and added: “We see pre-election violations at every step, but to say that the elections are fraudulent-that we don’t accept.”
So, the fact that there are political parties that have continuously violated the laws during the past year and are participating in the elections, and that there are candidates who don’t have the right to be nominated, does not serve as enough basis for Arthur Baghdasaryan to doubt the legality of the elections, or quite possibly, by saying “elections” he only means the vote which will take place on May 12. Recently when the Central Election Commission was discussing the issue regarding the registration of “Dashink” political party leader Samvel Babayan as a candidate, representative of the Armenian Popular Party Felix Khachatryan announced that based on the notice presented by Samvel Babayan, he is a citizen of Armenia, but has been living in Yerevan since 2006. Meanwhile, according to the Armenian Constitution, the National Assembly candidate must have had resided in Armenia for the past five years. Khachatryan had proposed S. Babayan to bring a new notice within 48 hours. The Armenian Popular Party and “Country of Law” had supported the proposal. The representative of “National Unity” had gone against the confirmation of the notices presented by Babayan. With regards to this, by the accepted formulation, A. Baghdasaryan mentioned that in reality their candidate had not been against the registration of Samvel Babayan either and that their candidate’s vote was a “misunderstanding” because “the candidate was participating in the session for the first time”. It turns out that according to Arthur Baghdasaryan, “Country of Law” supports Babayan’s registration, although the latter had presented a notice which did not give him the opportunity to register. As they say, “no comment”.
Referring to the classification of the real and unreal opposition, the leader of “Country of Law”, whose political party is frequently classified in the list of “unreal” oppositional parties, announced that there is already a discrediting policy on the opposition in Armenia.
“Our people definitely don’t get anything out of that. I don’t accept labeling political parties before the elections, especially now when we are in a campaign,” he continued. Let us recall that not too long ago, Arthur Baghdasaryan and Artashes Geghamyan accused each other of cooperating with the government during the broadcast of one of the television stations. With regards to the appointment of Serge Sargsyan as prime minister, Baghdasaryan mentioned that Sargsyan has always played a heavy role in government.
“I don’t think that much has changed. While in the post of defense minister, Sargsyan has de facto always had power, so I don’t see anything unusual in the political structure,” said the leader of “Country of Law” in closing. Journalists informed Baghdasaryan that leader of “New Times” political party Aram Karapetyan had said that if the opposition has a heavy presence in parliament, then the impeachment issue may be solved. Will you go for that? The “Country of Law” political party leader had this to say in response:
“First of all, the presidential elections are going to take place six months later. Why should we go for impeachment? We are going to have presidential elections in six months, what impeachment? No, let’s try to understand. What impeachment are we talking about when 10 years have already passed?” (The next Armenian presidential elections will take place in the second half of February 2008). Baghdsaryan mentioned once again that their party will have a heavy presence in the National Assembly “because 80-90% of the people are the opposition”, however Baghdasaryan did not say just how it was that one and a half years ago, that the 90% opposition-officially more than 95%-said “yes” to the constitutional amendments (head of the “Yes” headquarters was “Country of Law” representative Mher Shahgeldyan)?