The appetite of all Armenian political parties has grown during this pre-election period. No political party is satisfied with its 5% in the future parliament. They have the appetite for at least 15-20%, including the political parties that were founded just last year.
It is clear that among those parties with a huge appetite is the National Democratic Party, whose leader is well known Shavarsh Kocharyan. Mr. Kocharyan also has expectations of getting 15-20% and believes that his political party has the right.
“If you have noticed, all the political parties are presenting the same propositions in their platforms that the National Democratic Party has fought for continuously throughout the years,” says the party leader. “Everyone has suddenly noticed that Armenia is not only Yerevan and that there are other Marzes; that it is necessary to grant taxing privileges to the Marzes so that businessmen can make investments there. Today they mention that great funding must be provided to science. Since we don’t have a sea or oil, we can only tie our future with advanced technologies and the basis of those technologies is, obviously, science. However, no political party sees the issue of controlling government and recalling it. The National Democratic Party is the only party which, in 2001, presented a New Constitution laying down mechanisms of returning the power to the people and new drafts of the Electoral Code. The people must have the right to demand the removal of the distrusted National Assembly member, the government, the mayor, the district head and the alderman’s council.” And since there is no issue concerning copyright laws in politics, Sh. Kocharyan can’t declare these propositions as his own. He only hopes that at least there will be people who share his views and with whom he can communicate in the future parliament. But of course, on one condition: if the authors of those announcements turn them into a certainty and not use them as a tool for winning the confidence of the people in a short while and which will be easily forgotten once they enter parliament.
Amongst the similar ideas, Sh. Kocharyan suggests separating the National Democratic Party by taking a look at its past.
“Remember who was where and what they were doing until now. That is when everything will be clear. As far as the evaluation of our activities is concerned, I would have liked to see a more effective implementation of all that we have fought for. In that case, I would say that I am content with the work completed, but the fact that we were in parliament and were presenting on our own made us participate in the upcoming elections with a large and considerable proportional electoral list,” said Sh. Kocharyan.
The leader of the National Democratic Party will not compete with rich political parties, if he did, he would lose. He proposes presenting good ideas instead of the funds and prefers direct contact with the people as opposed to having headquarters and posters. Kocharyan is certain that big ideas must be presented, as opposed to big money, and his party is successful in doing that. As far as the process of the pre-election campaign is concerned, Shavarsh Kocharyan mentioned that they have not recorded any violations, but of course, there is discrimination. The parties with a lot of money are at an advantage because the campaign requires large amounts of money.