Only a Dashnak president can withstand the challenges of Armenia but the important thing is that the future president is truly elected by the will of people and the ARF is willing to cooperate with any president even if Levon Ter-Petrosyan is elected.
This statement was made at Hayeli Club by the Member of Parliament Arthur Aghabekyan, ARF Dashnaktsutyun, ex-deputy minister of defense. Can we assume that Aghabekyan, who has been working with former defense minister Serzh Sargsyan, thinks that the latter cannot withstand those challenges? According to Aghabekyan he’s worked with Sargsyan since the Karabakh war but the important thing now is that the president is truly elected by people. He says Dashnaktsutyun will cooperate with every elected president who will get the vote of people, even if this president is Levon Ter-Petrosyan. Aghabekyan said if in the second round Serge Sargsyan and Ter-Petrosyan run for presidency, he has already made his choice. He said Dashnaktsutyun is going to impart the election process with a new quality and is reluctant to wage a war with any force. Although Aghabekyan also says the response to the accusations against Dashnaktsutyun will come right away. “Most importantly, this time we will put up a team which will fulfill its pledges. Each member of this team, each representing a sphere, will be ready for a discussion with the team of another party,” Aghabekyan says. According to him, Dashnaktsutyun’s intentions are not false, and the party’s decision to run in the election is the result of serious consideration. Yesterady Aghabekyan said that the ARF is proud of its history. When the journalists tried to ask whether Dashnaks are proud of the Dro case, Vahan Hovhannisyan+3- criminal case, Vahan Hovhannisyan shooting in the air in Aragast café, stories connected with Aghvan Vardanyan. According to his answers these incidents don’t have any connection with the history of Dashnaktsutyun. It’s very interesting to find out about this because it turns out that the criminal grouping formed inside the ARF has got nothing to do with the party. The noteworthy thing is that Aghabekyan didn’t try to refute those accusations as opposed to what Dashnaks usually do. He only mentioned that the past history of the persons shouldn’t be connected with the party history. In fact what did happen? Some people had been crooks and why should the Dashnak party be blamed of that? How can it be connected with ARF? So what if criminal cases against these people still exist? Some of the ARF members are still in prison and the ARF presidential candidate was released from prison because of the “change of circumstances”. By the way, the mentioned “heroism acts” are not ascribed to people (as periodically mentioned Aghabekyan). In this case Aghabekyan thinks that people and the ARF party resemble. But let’s return to the Dro case, Vahan Hovhannisyan+3- criminal case, Vahan Hovhannisyan shooting in the air in Aragast café, stories connected with Aghvan Vardanyan… Is the ARF proud of this as well? To this question we’d like to fully cite the response of Aghabekyan, “You are connecting the history of persons with the history of our people. If we do this till the end then there is a lot to be ashamed of. Of course, every single person makes part of our overall history. But it doesn’t mean that the actions of every single individual must be connected with our people. And Dashnaktsutyun is the history of our people. Dashnaktsutyun is the memory of our people. I wouldn’t encourage you to find some negative individuals to constantly connect with our history.” Let’s go ahead. The potential candidate of president of the ARF is going to compete with his in-law Serzh Sargsyan. “I think the presidential election is a greater value in terms of serving people than kinship, or in-laws. If we go deep, we may find ties between each pair families, and eventually a person would have to quit politics and never leave his house again,” Arthur Aghabekyan says. When the reporters asked him to compare the supreme commander-in-chief of the armed force of Armenia and the supreme commander-in-chief-to-be. “No Armenian politician has done what Robert Kocharyan did in 1988-1992,” Arthur Aghabekyan stated. However, the reporters reminded him that in those years Levon Ter-Petrosyan was the supreme commander-in-chief. “I am sorry that in that period the commanders did not feel the supreme commander-in-chief on their back, are not aware of his decisions. This period is a little different, and I think there is much more to tell about it but we will tell after the settlement of the Karabakh issue. Or we will tell in our memoirs,” Aghabekyan says. He thinks the society should learn about the role of Vazgen Sargsyan in that period. “Frankly speaking, we must appreciate Vazgen Sargsyan’s mission. As a supreme commander-in-chief, Robert Kocharyan’s ability to make decisions had major influence on our victories,” Aghabekyan says.