Aram G. Sargsyan’s “Armenian Democratic Party” wants to be elected into the parliament in order to realize an Armenian model of social democracy. As “there aren’t such opportunities in the existing parliament”, they think that the participation in the elections is a needed step that may enable them to make the existing authorities resign.
Aram G. Sargsyan spoke about this yesterday at the “Hayeli” (mirror) club. Nikol Pashinyan, a representative of the “Dashink” bloc, said that in this phase they don’t think the elections are a tool for being elected into the parliament. “For us the elections are a tool for developing an agenda. Our political purpose is to reach a goal after the elections, which is to enable the real bearer of the government, i.e. the citizens, to get the power again and realize their government themselves,” said Mr. Pashinyan. Sargsyan says that in consideration of the new liabilities of the parliament, the factions have more opportunities in terms of the presidential elections. Meanwhile, he claims that the existing political environment in the country does not support free, democratic elections. “That is why we think the upcoming parliamentary elections are a phase, which may give us an opportunity to make these authorities resign, or we could just generally fail in that process. If we prove that this time there were also violations and mobilize people to demand their resignation, it will be a very good achievement. However, if the opposition power consists of 10, 20 or 30 parties that are not able to have influence on the situation, there will be no sense to go on with that process,” said the ADP leader. As for Mr. Pashinyan, he abruptly responded that “today the political powers are very often speaking about taking some actions if the elections are falsified…” He says that such definitions are normal, but not complete since he believes that the parliamentary elections were falsified long ago. “It is a pity that elections are understood in Armenia as the main electoral process when a voter casts a ballot into a ballot box. Notwithstanding, the elections were falsified long ago. The elections have been falsified since the TV companies have been stupefying and “sergefying” the minds of the voters. Now they want to speak about free elections. The elections are already falsified and people should go out into streets to bring up that fact. The elections are already falsified, and the principle of equal opportunities has been violated,” said Pashinyan, and added, “They have distributed bribes for votes, agriculture materials, potatoes, etc. There are many electoral violations now.” The representative of “Impeachment” bloc thinks that people should organize rallies in the regions and remote communities, and then, on an agreed upon day, should mobilize and move all together to Yerevan to take possession of their freedom and their government. “People have problems with the simple sources of information. For instance, how many people in Armenia know that the ADP is proposing a model of Armenian socialism? How many people have been informed about it? How many TV companies have broadcasted that information? I don’t agree with that ideology, but it is better to inform the voters so that they can make a conscious choice between the political powers and their ideologies and decide which of the options are more logical,” said Mr. Pashinyan, and added that instead of that people are informed about how potatoes are distributed and that “they are so kind that they are giving potatoes to people and taking them to doctors.” Aram Sargsyan added that the political parties that are distributing bribes are now petitioning people on TV not to take bribes. “We wonder from whom they may take that bribe if not from them,” said the ADP leader. However, Mr. Pashinyan says that the existing situation is everyone’s fault since it is a consequence of the people allowing the government to do what it wants. A journalist noted that Mr. Sargsyan wants the government to resign, while in parallel saying that the elections had already been falsified. The journalist also reminded that the same Aram G. Sargsyan had said a couple of months ago that “we can’t beat people and take the power from them by force.” The question was how they were going to take power if the authorities would never agree to “give” it to them. To this question Mr. Sargsyan answered, “If you are citing what I said, I meant that we can’t take weapons and shoot them to take power. Beating is a different thing.” As for the tools and methods how power can be taken, Mr. Sargsyan said that they have a serious faction in the parliament and if they, together with the opposition, decide to take power, they can do it.