After a long interval opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosyan reverted to harsh criticism of Armenia’s leadership but stood by his cautious strategy of trying to topple it yesterday as thousands of his supporters marked the second anniversary of the 2008 post-election violence of March 1 near the Matenadaran in Yerevan. Although the police blocked most of the roads to Yerevan but yesterday’s rally was quite crowded. Before Ter-Petrosyan’s speech one his closest associates, Levon Zurabyan, likewise claimed that the Sargsyan administration will eventually have no option but to call snap presidential and parliamentary elections because of what he described as its mounting foreign and domestic policy failures. He said the fact that the authorities again seriously restricted transport communication between Yerevan and the rest of the country ahead of the demonstration shows that they are “terrified” of the Ter-Petrosyan-led opposition. Zurabyan presented the timeline of the demands of the ANC, which the Congress is going to submit to the representation of the Council of Europe on March 16 before the PACE session. The Congress demands from the government to set free the political prisoners, afterwards, to make democratic reforms and within the period between June and September, the Congress demands for parliamentary and presidential elections to be held. He said that if the participants of the rally agree with the schedule and with the ANC demands, on March 16, one day before the PACE monitoring session they are to join a march to hand their demands to the CoE representative to Armenia. Ter-Petrosyan didn’t specify to what extent these demands are realistic. Ter-Petrosyan renewed his scathing verbal attacks on the Sargsyan administration, decrying its “criminal essence” and alleged inability to “solve any problem facing the country.” The authorities, he charged, have “never realized the need to establish an honest dialogue and national solidarity for confronting the existing challenges.” He also denounced the Turkish-Armenian rapprochement as a “humiliating process” and blamed Sargsyan for “the prospect of a disgraceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.” It was also announced that the ANC will hold its next major rally on April 6.
