There is still hope

According to the first president the controversies inside the coalition can “offer an opportunity to expand the opposition circles”

4 years and two days later, yesterday the opposition Armenian National Congress organized another rally in the Freedom square. In that regard, addressing rally participants the first president of the Republic of Armenia Levon Ter-Petrossian observed at the end of his speech that the people had been struggling for freedom for 4 years, therefore, he declared that day the day of people’s final victory, “I am sure, the people will not let the victory slip, because they are the people struggling for freedom for 4 years already and the administration is not as strong as it was 4 years ago, it is a feeble authority.”
The yesterday rally of the Armenian National Congress started with a silence minute in commemoration of the “October 27” victims, afterwards Nikol Pashinyan, the rally coordinator, Aram Sargsyan, the leader of the Republic Party, Stepan Demirchyan, the leader of the People’s Party of Armenia (PPA) also mentioned that subject in their speeches – they reminded, accused, labeled, compared, and Nikol Pashinyan voiced lots of times that this crime organizers will stand public trial and the fate of Mubarak, Gadhafi and Ben Ali awaits them. Hrant Bagratyan, the former prime minister of Armenia and the leader of the Freedom Party expressed in his speech the idea that the workers of the nuclear power plant were right to protest and called for compassion for the latter. He was concerned about the possible closure of the nuclear power plant and said that it should be closed after opening the new one. Bagratyan professionally examined and criticized the budget of the upcoming year being under discussion in the National Assembly and characterized it with one sentence, “That budget means that we will continue getting worse.” He also stated that one had to deny the offer of $400 million for “Nairit”. According to him, the workers of “Nairit” can be paid in company stocks. The former prime minister is convinced that “Nairit” was a company operating on its own profit and there was no need to add burden to the government because of the private company, adding that he suspected that Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan had an interest in that. By the way, Armenian Democratic Liberal Party (ADLP) chairman Harutyun Arakelyan has been making explicit statements on that for many years already, he has been even putting forward some facts. The head of the Pan-Armenian National Movement (PANM) board Aram Manukyan called for the political forces, “Be a man and express your position – either you are for Serzh Sargsyan’s resignation or you are his customer.” ANC coordinator Levon Zurabyan stated in his turn that ANC started “velvet revolution” from that moment on. According to him, there were all necessary conditions for Serzh Sargsyan’s resignation and ANC had all the necessary means to fulfill that. Only “nationwide engagement in that cause” is left to do.
At the end of the rally the first president of the Republic of Armenia Levon Ter-Petrossian urged “to seriously work on improving the mechanisms of ensuring the fairness of the upcoming election from this day forward”, reminding that ANC delegation had proposed a whole package of amendments of legislation and other measures regarding those mechanisms as early as in the framework of the dialogue with the authority – without taking those measures it is just pointless to speak of “the possibility of ever holding lawful election in Armenia”. According to Ter-Petrossian, the Congress did not just aim at coming to power, but forming a legitimate authority through fair election – in that case, he is ready to congratulate the winner. The first president focused on “the most efficient way of rigging the election, i.e. publishing 500000 additional ballots and on the measures to overcome that”. The issue voiced and discussed since 2008. “We have struggled for holding span presidential and parliamentary elections for three and a half years. Unfortunately, no other political forces considered to be opposition have supported that demand neither in word, nor in deed and a certain part of those have even explicitly spoken against that demand, willingly or unwillingly contributing to the existence of the criminal administration. Although it certainly made our work difficult, but did not discourage us in any way, because we were convinced that sooner or later the governmental monolith will crack, the vindication of which are the controversies inside the administration and the ruling coalition that have taken place lately. In case of deepening, those may fundamentally change the layout of the political forces and offer an opportunity to expand opposition circles.”
Afterwards, the Congress supporters marched through the downtown streets of the capital city, chanting “Serzhik, go away” and “shame on you”. The next rally will take place on November 25.