* Mr. Grigoryan, you won 32 thousand votes in no. 18 electoral district, more than any other candidate for majoritarian representation. You were nominated by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), but the President of the Republic of Armenia stated that the Republican Party also endorsed you. What attitude will you [...]
Before the parliamentary election, the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA), the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP), the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), the Democratic Party of Armenia (DPA), the Armenian Communist Party (ACP) and the Rule of Law Party (RLP), had signed an application to the NSS. “Attaching importance to ruling out [...]
Levon Ter-Petrossian expressed a very apt idea at the time – if you can call this administration “regime” in a mass media publishing legally (not at the level of samizdat), then there is actually no regime at all. Certainly, it is about despotism, which hasn’t been
there during the 20-year history of the independent Armenia and I hope it will never be there. More so now, when there are TV channels broadcasting in Armenia that express the opinions of the two parties and those parties – the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) – took an absolutely opposition attitude during the election campaign. Even if we don’t take into consideration websites and social networks, which are a relatively new phenomenon, and newspapers (opposition newspapers have always been there), then one can assert that the situation in the information field is absolutely new. Opposition TV channels haven’t broadcasted in Armenia – there was A1+, which was independent and which was deprived of broadcasting in 2002, the rest had been “free, but responsible” till April 2012.
Three things are left to do: 1. The political forces “owning” those two TV companies should maintain their relative independence; 2. Those mass media shouldn’t be too partisan and offer an opportunity to other oppositionists – the Armenian National Congress (ANC) and the Heritage Party – as well as representatives of the government and people outside the created system, to express themselves; 3. If the first two conditions are met, the government should be smart enough not to persecute these two TV channels. (By the way, it is interesting why the videos testifying to election fraud are not shown almost at all.)
“I think that one shouldn’t see it as a serious thing. In such cases, one should immediately call law-enforcement agencies. We ourselves do relevant work,” Davit Harutyunyan, an RPA head of the state and legal issues committee of the National Assembly, said, in response to an observation of www.aravot.am [...]
The ARF organized a meeting with campaign headquarters members, ARF representatives in the electoral commissions and proxies in the hall of Moscow Cinema yesterday. After this meeting had been over, www.aravot.am tried to get a clarification from Armen Rustamyan, a representative of the ARF Supreme Body in Armenia, whether there [...]
www.aravot.am inquired from Armen Poghosyan, the head of the Consumers’ Association NGO, the pre-election program of which party was the most populist and the program of which party the most realistic. Our interlocutor responded, “The most populist programs are the ones of the ruling Republican Party and the Prosperous Armenia [...]
Paruyr Hayrikyan, the leader of the National Self-Determination Union (NSDU), said about the ARF that “they have existed for nothing for 100 years.” Paruyr Hayrikyan told in detail why he was compelled to say so during a conversation with www.aravot.am today, “Vahan Hovhannisyan said that the NSDU didn’t exist. And [...]
Today the joints staff of the three political forces – the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), the Armenian National Congress (ANC) and the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) – convened a regular plenary meeting, at which various issues were discussed, but they didn’t discuss handing out tractors by Gagik Tsarukyan during his [...]
Some candidates for MP and almost every political party have gotten a warning from Yerevan City Hall for “occupying” walls, posts or advertisement boards provided for them. If they repeat the violation, they will pay administrative fine in the amount of 100 times the minimum wage. In response to a [...]
www.aravot.am asked Armen Martirosyan, a member of the Heritage Party parliamentary group, to comment on Samvel Nokoyan’s statement that the rumors that the Heritage Party was engaged in some cooperation with the government were a political technology to win votes. Mr. Martirosyan explained, “I don’t know what Mr. Nikoyan said [...]
The Heritage Party has been regularly criticized recently for having an “affair” with the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA). Today www.aravot.am inquired from Hovsep Khurshudyan, the spokesperson of the party, whether there had been a change in the attitude of the party toward the ruling party recently. According to him, [...]
www.aravot.am applied to Stepan Safaryan, a representative of the Heritage Party and its parliamentary group leader, trying to clarify whether it was possible that the party would join the Rules Guaranteeing Civilized Participation in the Election prepared by the RPA executive body, which had been made public the previous day [...]
I am not afraid of Serzh Sargsyan’s, I am not afraid of Levon Ter-Petrossian’s rule. I don’t see anything awful, if Raffi Hovhannisyan, Gagik Tsarukyan or Vartan Oskanian become the President. They will certainly rule in different manners, but, being rational people, not having pathological inclinations, they will try to maintain the internal stability and consent. The only man, whose rule I fear, is Robert Kocharyan. I am not afraid for myself personally, but at least, two events took place during that president’s rule – October 27 and March 1 – which threw back our country’s progress for a few years twice. None of the above-mentioned figures would have allowed that. The first president can be honestly offended, if someone doesn’t think like him, the current president will try to convince that person that he is right. When the second president sees that someone doesn’t agree with him, he just instinctively grabs the pistol. Under conditions of the same regime, there is a difference in characters and the traits of Robert Kocharyan’s character can be dangerous for the country. If my respectable friends from the Armenian National Congress (ANC) contribute to that willingly or unwillingly, it seems to me they are making a mistake.
“I think that no political force can help the Heritage Party in any way anymore. If the given political force has chosen that policy, that strategy, I think that the real motivations of its political attitude are visible directly and unambiguously to the society. I don’t doubt it for a [...]
The public poll results made public by Gallup yesterday strangely got not a broad response from political forces. Either the results are in everyone’s interest, or, being not in their interest, they seem trustworthy. According to those results, it becomes clear, in particular, that besides three small parties, which, in many people’s opinion, were planted by the government to say bad things about the Armenian National Congress (ANC), the other political forces can struggle for appearing in the National Assembly.
According to that poll, as it was expected, the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) and the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) are in the “Premier League.” Perhaps there is a struggle between them on the apparatus, organizational and material levels, but they don’t speak against each other at least outwardly. Moreover, the PAP is in an advantageous position, also because the ANC doesn’t speak against it – it pins certain hopes on that party. I suppose Robert Kocharyan will make a public statement in the near future. He, in my opinion, will, as always, talk about how blossoming the economy was during his presidency and how bad the situation is today. He will probably say also how important conducting free and fair elections, not handing out election bribe and not using the administrative resource are. Former presidents are used to forgetting how elections were held during their rule. However, what the second president will say is not so important, as with what intonation he will express his thoughts. Given that, the PAP rhetoric will either become stronger or will remain the same.
Artashes Nikoyan nominated by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) in no. 22 electoral district told during a conversation with www.aravot.am that the Republicans canvassed for their candidates in the same electoral district from door to door, “They deceive the people that they can check them with the numbers of passports [...]
The Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) and the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) representatives informed mass media half-officially yesterday that they would not participate in TV debates with either each other or other forces participating in the parliamentary election “at this stage.” It is not clear yet how long this stage will last. I cannot say what the reason for such a strategy is either; it seems that there are good orators in both teams – Artashes Geghamyan, Khosrov Harutyunyan, Gurgen Arsenyan, Hmayak Hovhannisyan. Admittedly, the debates, in which they will participate, will be more like monologues, because it will be very difficult to stop the flow of these politicians’ thoughts, but it is obvious that they will not yield to any oppositionist. For example, when I am offered to participate in a debate, I refuse, because I know that I will be defeated, because I think that crushing someone, “bringing him to his knees” and pillorying him in a logomachy is an unserious and childish thing. However, politicians, certainly, must be engaged in such debates, particularly, in the pre-election period.
“Vardan Bostanjyan can find out whether a certain position is correct or not. In this case, Bostanjyan found out that the position of the ARF is in line with his perceptions, about which he has talked about many times in the parliament. Sympathy has always been there. I am very [...]
There is an article in the ARF pre-election program – they promise to give an apartment to parents that have 5 and more children. In response to our observation whether they wanted to help also Samvel Alexanyan, Artsvik Minasyan, an ARF MP, said during a conversation with www.aravot.am, “If [...]
Sociologist Aharon Adibekyan was also invited to the presentation of the ARF pre-election program today. During a conversation with www.aravot.am, he said the following about the program, “This is a perfect program, it is very competitive, the program gives solutions to every problem existing in Armenia. However, there is a [...]
