ARF will be guided by the principles set before itself and will lead the struggle till the end, however it’s not going to waste its whole potential during the forthcoming elections because it has long-term goals.
Yesterday NA ARF faction member Ruzan Arakelyan said in Tesaket press club. She estimates the current situation normal, however doesn’t exclude that it may get tense closer to elections. Ruzan Khachatryan, the Spokesperson of the People’s Party of Armenia (PPA), also touching upon the forthcoming presidential elections, said that politicians in Armenia prepare for the elections like for a battle and hold them like a battle." According to R. Khachatryan, though for PPA, the best candidate for presidency is Stepan Demirchyan, nevertheless, it is ready to consolidate around another candidate for the sake of the idea of having a common candidate. Khachatryan said that her party is for the joint candidate because it will be impossible to change the current situation without joint support. According to Khachatryan the PPA is considering the current situation beyond its personal interests and doesn’t go in memories because “if we go into memories there will be very few political parties, which haven’t somehow attacked the PPA.” But the ARF female MP thinks that there is a little progress in the political field. “The only fact that the political forces are trying to understand each other through making dialogs is a positive improvement,” said Arakelyan. “As of political collisions then those will take place by all means. Those maybe demonstrated through fists, gunshots or words,” she said. “I highly estimate your objectiveness and sincerity as being part of the coalition you forecast such collisions and speak of the negative phenomena. It would be so much better if the MP representing the government could say that they are going to guarantee free, fair and quite elections without any incidents,” said Ruzan Khachatryan. According to the latter PPA has its own candidate in the person of Demirchyan. Meanwhile she once again emphasized the importance of uniting for the sake of the single goal of taking Armenia out of the crisis. She also announced that the decisions of the party leaders to run on their own may be alternated in the end. “There is still time. Parties are actively negotiating and I thing changes will take place,” said Mrs. Khachatryan. Is the decision of the ARF around the presidential elections final? Will they change their decision later? As a response to these questions Arakelyan said, “I trust in principality of our party and I am sure that if it nominates its candidate at the presidential election, it will go to the end.” Is it possible that at some stage of the campaign the ARF may recall its candidate and support another party candidate in order to save the country from the come-back of the ANM? “We haven’t spoken about that yet,” she said. “If the elections proceed in a free and fair environment without violations of course ARF will not become opposition to prove itself one. But if we have the opposite situation indeed the ARF will decide on how to fight against those – on it own or with the support of other forces,” said the ARF MP. One of the journalists “reminded” that in 2003 the ARF announced that the Parliamentary elections were falsified and said that votes were stolen from them. However they ended up sharing the government with those force, which they were blaming of fraudulent elections. What is changed now? Where is the principality of the ARF? “We have always been a principled party before we entered the coalition, after that and till now. We have always stated the facts about violations,” said Arakelyan. To the question whether they will not do the same in 2008 criticize the violators and later make a coalition with them Arakelyan answered, “Maybe.” The ARF MP mentioned that politics is not a game. Mrs. Khachatryan agreed with this thought and in the meantime asked, “Why do we have so many gamblers and drug addicts in politics?”