Galust Sahakyan’s another unprecedented idea
Only 10 out of 41 MPs elected through the majoritarian system to the National Assembly are not included in the National Assembly factions, all 31 are members of this or that faction. Furthermore, the MPs elected through the majoritarian system are mostly members of the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) or the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP). However, it might be surprising, but according to the list on the National Assembly website, Samvel Baghdasaryan, the deputy chairman of PAP and the deputy speaker of the National Assembly, as well as businessman Samvel Alexanyan and two other PAP members Rustam Gasparyan and Martun Grigoryan, are not members of any faction. Hakob Hakobyan, elected from no. 41, Viktor Dallakayn, elected from no. 30, as well as National Unity member Ara Simonyan, elected from no. 10 aren’t members of any faction either. Mkhitar Varagyan, elected from no. 36, Mikayel Vardanyan and Tigran Torosyan, elected from no. 40, and Lyova Khachatryan from no. 14 are also out of faction lists. When there was a group in the parliament called “People’s MP” (the head of the group was Karen Karapetyan, the former chief of staff of the President of the Republic of Armenia), MPs elected through the majoritarian system mostly joined that group, today there is no group for them. The struggle started by the opposition for elimination of the majoritarian system three and a half months before the election is perceived by the members of ruling parties as a part of the pre-election show. Some people think that this fuss is in establishment’s interest too as if a few seats will be available for oppositionists, voiding a few majoritarian seats. Why not, I mean both the spits and what is on them will not be burnt. A day before Armen Rustamyan, a representative of the General Body of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) and the head of the National Assembly standing commission on foreign affairs, stated during “Interview” show of the Public TV channel that the establishment, retaining 41 majoritarian seats, went for the parliamentary election having exactly that many votes and it created unequal conditions. RPA member Rafik Petrosyan, opposing the above-mentioned, said the opposition could announce candidacies for the majoritarian election and if they had enough resources, they would win.
Galust Sahakyan, the leader of the RPA faction and the deputy chairman of RPA, expressed quite an interesting idea during a conversation with “Aravot” that we have made the heading. According to Galust Sahakyan, there are many famous politicians outside the parliament, who lead parties that do not have enough rating and cannot cross the necessary margin, do not have “social inclusion” to be elected to the parliament, however they are leaders, they are very important for the Armenian political stage and why would it be so bad, if those politicians announce themselves for the majoritarian electoral system and win, “When one asks international experts which one is right, they look at him with surprise and say which you think is the right one – from this perspective we believe that the majoritarian system must be preserved.” Galust Sahakyan thinks MPs who “think that being MP is their lifestyle and play certain role in the commissions, communication with the society, plenary meetings should be elected in the parliament, certainly, we will take that path, in order to include them in our list, but the new people will have to be exactly like those and the majority electoral system is free. Let me say another thing – if we want to have a very efficient National Assembly, we have to guarantee a list of members, most of whom have found themselves outside and I can tell their names, there were rather experienced politicians in the Pan-Armenian National Movement (PANM), such as Vazgen Manukyan, Paruyr Hayrikyan, Karapet Rubinyan, Aram Manukyan, Ara Sahakyan, I can tell other names too, they should be here now and discussions will be more effective. I know from previous experience that we are sometimes compelled to play the role of the opposition, i.e. those filtering political forces that have to put forward problems to the society, we also have to take care of that and sometimes we play that role ourselves.”
The leader of the RPA faction claims that the Republicans were the first to support elimination of the majoritarian seats, “We offered that and today one cannot prove which one will make elections better. There is one factor that makes elections better, they have to be fair whether they are majoritarian or proportional. Parties, members of which are closer to the local people, must claim that the majoritarian representation seats should be more. When we were discussing the Election Code at the time, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation was the most active, the Heritage Party partially and they got no responses from the non-parliamentary opposition at the time. As it is the election year already, this is a message addressed to the political stage, because they probably think that this will be of strategic importance for them. Everything is clear for us, we have made our decision. Those opposition forces that struggle for proportional representation should know if they had worked locally, as we have done, they would have had such members or members adjacent to them that would have been able to cross the majoritarian representation margin and certainly this argument wouldn’t have taken place. Moreover, making it fully proportional representation system would also mean a National Assembly of the city of Yerevan.”
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MARGARIT YESAYAN
