“A joint oppositional presidential candidate will bring a new note to the political field of Armenia,” stated the deputy-chairman of the Legal State Party, MP Mher Shahgeldyan, during his press conference on June 20. He told the journalists that he had always liked the idea of nominating a joint oppositional candidate, however, he didn’t clarify whether the Legal State was going to do so during the coming Presidential elections.
The Legal State party chairman, Artur Baghdasaryan, enjoys considerable respect in Armenia and abroad, and the party will hardly support some other oppositional candidate. At any rate, Legal State will discuss this issue and decide in what way they are going to participate in the presidential elections. According to Shahgeldyan, the party knows where it belongs and doesn’t strive for unrealistic things.
The “rat race” has been taking place within Legal State for quite a long time. It started before the parliamentary elections and still continues. After former NA Speaker Artur Baghdasaryan resigned, many of the top members of the party, mainly businessmen, left the party. If you remember, before the elections, Hakob Hakobyan (beer Hakob) resigned. Immediately after the elections, NA deputy Samvel Balasanyan (one of Baghdasaryan’s loyalists) left the party. The latter used to head the Legal State parliamentary faction. About a week ago, however, the list of the “leavers” was updated and included the head of the youth wing of the party Samvel Farmanyan, his deputy Marcel Abrahamyan, as well as the party advisor on foreign relations, Tigran Mkrtchyan. As a response to the question concerning the gradual defection of party members, and especially senior ones, Shahgeldyan said, “Legal State has many members, and the defection of one or two doesn’t affect the activities of our party.” In fact it is not a few members who have left. The list of the “runners” includes the former Minister of Education Sergo Yeritsyan, oligarch Hakob Hakobyan, as well as several former Legal State ministers and businessmen (about 15-20 top members). Perhaps this is understandable. Since becoming an oppositional party, Legal State has stopped being attractive to businessmen and oligarchs. As to the defection of the young members, Shahgeldyan said, “They had ambitions to be elected as NA deputies, but their efforts were not justified.” Also, the other deputy-chairman of the party, Heghine Bisharyan, was until recently denying the information about the defection of the young members of the party. She denied that this originated because of the controversy between Baghdasaryan and Farmanyan. Yesterday Shahgeldyan confirmed this information.
During the press conference, Shahgeldyan also didn’t miss the chance to speak about the recent Parliamentary elections. He complained that Legal State had gained about twice as many votes as were officially declared (100,000). He announced that the elections were falsified. At that time, one of the journalists asked whether the results of the Constitutional Referendum 2005 were also falsified or not. It should be recalled that Shahgeldyan was heading the “yes” campaign during the Referendum. At that time, the chairpersons of electoral committees were school principals, and most of them Legal State members. Former Education Minister Yeritsyan forced school principals to become Legal State members. After the Referendum, everybody knew that the results were falsified, but neither Baghdasaryan nor Shahgeldyan said anything negative about that. Immediately after the Referendum, Shahgeldyan held a press conference and the journalists asked him literally six times if the Referendum was falsified. But the latter, as usual, gave a confusing and senseless answer. Baghdasrayan, at that time, was only saying that there was ballot-box stuffing, and was calling on everybody to provide the necessary facts. And now Legal State is playing as opposition, which isn’t in the least accepted by the people.