Is convinced Alexander Arzumanyan, a member of the New Democrats Party and the former minister of foreign affairs.
– The authorities underline that the upcoming parliamentary election will be much more democratic, the election fraud will be ruled out, people will be given an opportunity to participate in a normal and fair election, shall we believe those promises or not?
– Give me an example when any establishment said before the election that it was going for election fraud, then those statements are worth to discuss. Officially, they have to say that the election will not be rigged, certainly, because rigging an election is a crime, it is obvious that they have to say so, but steps and actions show the real intentions. The parliamentary opposition has made a set of offers, starting with a discussion on the Election Code, it has been making offers till now. The level of readiness to conduct a normal election can be determined by the state’s response to those offers and let me repeat, kind words are like toasts, which we are already tired of listening to after these ten days.
– You are convincingly stating that the election will be rigged and yet why shouldn’t we believe that this time it won’t be rigged?
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– The task of all of us, the political forces, the society, is to do everything we can so as it cannot be rigged, in countries like ours (I am not talking about mature democracies) the establishment decidew a priori to reproduce and does everything to guarantee that reproduction and goes for election fraud insofar as the society allows and doesn’t struggle. By saying they will necessarily try to rig the election I don’t mean at all that we should sit idly and watch them rigging. One should struggle for every vote in every electoral district, in order that this robbery is not carried out, to prevent it.
– How do the Free Democrats prepare for the parliamentary election – there is much speculation about the possible alliance between the Free Democrats and the Heritage Party – how reasoned are these rumors and what expectations do you have from the parliamentary election, how many seats do you expect?
– We do whatever we can to be ready for the election process, we establish party institutions in the local areas, we work with monitors, prepare our trustees, as any political force going for an election does before any election. We have no doubts that the election results will be rigged, but we have to do everything to use all the opportunities offered to us by even this imperfect election code, in order to make it hard to rig the election and secure our votes. Accordingly, we make pre-election plans and everything necessary for a political force going for an election. Since our party is a force uniting people with the same ideology, we are ready to cooperate with other forces that share the same ideology. It is obvious that the Heritage Party preaches the same ideas and we have normal relations with them. Only time will tell what kind of cooperation there will be between us during the election process. It is too early to speak of that.
– Do you share the notion that when opposition political forces are established before the election they are established to take votes from opposition forces that already exist and operate on the political stage with a specifically drawn scenario?
– Generally, if we are guided by the conspiracy theory, everything can be perceived a result of this or that conspiracy. No one has a monopoly in the opposition camp or among the authorities, every man, especially if he is open-minded and free-thinking, determines the level of his freedom and how and in what manner he executes that freedom himself. One can search for a conspiracy in any good thing.
– Will the debate between some members of the Pan-Armenian National Movement (PANM) and Free Democrats continue?
– I wouldn’t call it a debate, debate is when people express ideas, discuss views and when there are some attacks, it is not appropriate for politics, especially the opposition camp, particularly when it comes to common purposes, restoring constitutional order, getting rid of the illegitimate regime, therefore one should not seek for enemies in that camp and as far as I know, some of my close friends have just answered questions they raised in their manner. We don’t need to debate in the opposition camp, we have one task, to represent free and democratic ideology in the parliament through normal election mechanisms.
Interviewed MARGARIT YESAYAN
