The “third pre-election bloc” led by Manuk Gasparyan and Paruyr Hayrikyan is acting in close conditions. Manuk Gasparyan says that they have decided not to discover any information until they find their joint candidate.
“We have heard many names concerning our initiative, among which there were names such as “Metelitsa”, a café political power, etc. This is the reason why we have decided not to discover any information. We will come up with announcement as soon as we find a joint candidate to support,” said the head of PDF, Manuk Gasparyan during our conversation. He even didn’t say the names of the political powers, which participated in their meetings at their office. “I can’t say, once we finish everything you will know everything,” he said. In answer to our question whether they would support Levon Ter-Petrosyan if he decided to run Mr. Gasparyan said, “When he becomes a joint candidate, the political situation will change. We will not join anyone, we want the candidate to come and join us. We will support anyone except for the existing authorities. Certainly, there are people with Levon, who are doing things that should not be done, but that is not so dangerous,” said Manuk Gasparyan and explained that he meant the behavior of those people, “They are doing favor for different people and changing. Do you understand? They are doing such things. There are people with Levon, who don’t want the other powers to go and join with Levon. They want to be with a small group in order to do what they have done in the past. In a word, they want to get the power. However, if Levon wants to come to power with the same team, we will ask him not to do that. What I say does not mean that we will not support their joint candidate. However, we don’t have to go and join them, their candidate has to come to us and say that their candidate wants to be supported by other powers too”. M. Gasparyan says he does not want Ter-Petrosyan to come to them himself and propose suggestions, but wants him to participate in their discussions in consideration of the fact that they always invite all political powers. “Levon Ter-Petrosyan will become a joint candidate during those negotiations. In a word, if he wants to be a joint candidate, he must be the joint candidate for all of us,” said M. Gasparyan.
Despite Manuk Gasparyan, the leader of AIM, Paruyr Hayrikyan, who is a member of the mentioned bloc too, said that the statement that they had made one week prior to that day in fact excluded the possibility of supporting Levon Ter-Petrosyan. “Our statement, which was sent to all political powers besides ARP and PA by Manuk Gasparyan’s office, writes that the previous authorities have not justified our expectations, and the existing authorities have failed more by four-five times than the previous ones. This already excludes the possibility of supporting Levon Ter-Petrosyan”. It turns out that the leader of AIM is displeased with the behavior of Levon Ter-Petrosyan. He says that in order to be supported he “had to behave correctly”. “He is behaving as an oligarch. In consideration of the manner he works we can say that he is doing like an oligarch. He says that he is the only one and suggests the others to go and join him. This is the reason why I have spoken about it harshly since there was time when I was the one that opened way for the others, but I didn’t tell anyone to come and follow me. I said them to come and discuss with me what we could do. However, Levon has chosen a way, which I can explain as oligarchic, directly or indirectly,” says P. Hayrikyan. Besides that, Paruyr Hayrikyan says that Levon Ter-Petrosyan had to make a step towards the other powers and suggest the other powers supporting ANM and him to go and participate in their discussions. “Those who supported him participated in such discussions initially, and if he made a step towards them too, he could develop that process instead of being isolated. In fact, he prevented their participation, directly or indirectly. Can you imagine what would happen in that case? He would be very strong and thus could say that he was powerful enough to be a good candidate. However, he did not choose that way, and now our statement excludes that possibility. Generally I don’t exclude anything, but Levon has chosen the way, which excludes that possibility,” assured Paruyr Hayrikyan.
Notwithstanding, Hayrikyan assures that at present the “third bloc” is open for everyone and the statement they had sent to all political powers was a “good reason to think”. By the way, Hayrikyan said that the PDF office had sent that statement to ARF too, however he said that he didn’t know why they had done so, “I don’t know, but as far as I know Manuk’s office has sent them too,” said P. Hayrikyan.
However, he says that he “is not so proud of the power he has created since there are people in it that think that they carry about this power more than I do”. “Now I don’t care about it that much,” said Paruyr Hayrikyan. He says that there have been discussions in participation with Manuk Gasparyan, Geghamyan, Aram Gasparich and Shavarsh Kochrayn. However, during the latest discussion there were no one else than Manuk Gasparyana and him. “However, as I said I don’t carry about it that much any more. There are people that want to join our movement, they like that idea, but behave very bad. I mean that they say it is a good idea, however they say that they don’t have to sign it,” said P. Hayrikyan. He was going to leave for Karabakh and, as he said, he was going “to find out who would keep with them and discover who are venal or ill”. In answer to our question whether there are corrupted people in their bloc Hayrikyan said, “Those who think that they can participate in elections alone and win are sick. This is all that I can say now”.
P.S. Hayrikyan promised us to share with his findings after returning from Karabakh. By the way, Hayrikyan said that he wanted to suggest the authorities of Karabakh to declare Karabakh as the most democratic state in the world so that the world does not suspect in that fact, however he said he didn’t know how the newly elected authorities of Karabakh would accept that suggestion.