Yesterday the Heritage Party and the Free Democrats Party discussed this and other issues concerning elections
According to the information of Aravot.am, yesterday evening the Heritage Party and the Free Democrats Party representatives had a meeting. The meeting took place at the level of party leaders – as deputy chairman of the Heritage Party Ruben Hakobyan said yesterday during a conversation with aravot.am, he and Armen Martirosyan, a member of the party’s parliamentary faction, on the Heritage Party’s side, and Khachatur Kokbelyan and Ararat Zurabyan on the Free Democrats Party’s participated in the meeting. According to our information, during the meeting, they discussed the bill that followed the joint statement made by the Heritage Party and ARF to switch to 100% proportional representation system for the National Assembly and steps to be taken in that context, as well as other issues related to the parliamentary election.
Ruben Hakobyan, however, confirmed the first part of our information and partially the second, insofar as the initiative of switching to proportional representation is generally connected to the upcoming election, nonetheless added, “We will cooperate with them (Free Democrats). We agreed that we can continue our cooperation, since we have many common political ideas. However, there will be a political forum in the short-run, at which both they and all other forces that supported our joint initiative with ARF will be present”, said Ruben Hakobyan.
We also talked to Armen Martirosyan, a member of the party’s parliamentary faction. The latter responded to our questions the following, “We generally discussed everything. However, we meet with all forces that supported our joint initiative. These are ordinary business meetings that we always have”, said Armen Martiosyan in response to our request to clarify, adding that they had had such a meeting with the representatives of the Armenian National Congress (ANC) too. Referring to the efficiency of those meetings, the MP expressed an idea that they already had a result, “Those are statements, by which many political forces offered their support to the legislative initiative of the Heritage Party and ARF.” And the rest, according to Martirosyan, will be clear in time. Responding to our inquiries, he also added that regarding that issue, they had discussed with the Free Democrats, in particular, issues of planning common strategy, joint steps, their sequence, which, however, were still being discussed. Both Ruben Hakobyan and Armen Martirosyan preferred to avoid our questions about possible closer cooperation with the Free Democrats.
Read also
We didn’t manage to talk to the leaders of the Free Democrats Party, but the party representatives did not deny the fact of this meeting. In response to our question whether there had been discussions with ARF on the legislative initiative of the parliamentary opposition too, they said that they had not directly communicated with ARF yet, but there had been exchange of ideas by the mediation of the Heritage Party.
As for whether it was possible that the cooperation between these forces would lead to more serious cooperation, so that they would form an electoral alliance, the party representatives said that they gave importance to the particular issue being discussed, but it was not the issue that would lead to closer cooperation. On the opposite, according to the Free Democrats, the forces that supported the initiative of the Heritage Party and ARF on particular issue are doomed to take joint steps and try to do that.
Let us remind that the Heritage Party and ARF parliamentary factions have put forward a package of bills, as a common legislative initiative, providing for amendments to the Election Code, the Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly and the Law on the Constitutional Court. By that package they offered to switch to 100% proportional representation. Not only the Free Democrats, but also ANC, the Democratic Liberal Party of Armenia (HRAK), U-Turn and People’s parties, the National Democratic Union, the Armenian Labor Socialist Party, the United Labor Party, as well as the Democratic Party of Armenia (DPA) and many other political and civil groups and intellectuals offered their support to this initiative of the two parties.
NAIRA MAMIKONYAN
