The consensus between ANC, the Heritage Party and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation for free and fair elections doesn’t threaten to become a pre-election alliance yet.
The three main forces of the Armenian opposition camp, ARF, the Heritage Party and ANC, have reached an agreement on switching to 100% proportional representation before the upcoming parliamentary election. During a forum that took place yesterday, all of them noted that they would actively struggle for the implementation of this idea, if they didn’t manage, they said they would not be disappointed, but would try to jointly struggle for free and fair elections. Considering the existing consensus and the readiness to struggle to the end, Aravot inquired whether it was possible that these forces would form an alliance in the pre-election period. ANC coordinator Levon Zurabyan said that they hadn’t talked about that, neither was there such an issue on the agenda, “Every one of us is concerned about free and fair elections.” We observed that it was already clear that various representatives of the establishment stated that they had made a political decision and they were not going to agree to offers of the opposition and inquired whether it wouldn’t be more efficient, if the three parties formed a pre-election alliance and tried to guarantee free and fair elections in that way. “You make very far-reaching offers”, observed Levon Zurabyan and added, “We still have a long road to travel to well organize the process of cooperation on guaranteeing free and fair elections. This is our task now. I think there are hopeful developments.” Mr. Zurabyan reminds that ANC put forward the issue of switching to 100% proportional representation for the Council of Europe consideration as early as in 2010, “There were prisoners of conscience at the time and we couldn’t negotiate any issue. When the prisoners of conscience were released, we engaged in a dialogue and put these same offers on the negotiation table. However, the dialogue process showed that the establishment did not make a hint that they were ready for a dialogue, therefore the dialogue failed. Now there is only one way left, to unite aiming at putting the establishment under pressure. It is what we do. This is a dictatorship with democratic façade that must be dismantled. All political and social organizations must unite around this idea and make it a national process for fair and legitimate elections.”
We reminded Levon Zurabyan that in particular after the 2008 presidential election there had been some problems between ANC and ARF, when ARF had joined the coalition, they had labeled and named each other and inquired whether the past had been overcome, whether it did not prevent them from sitting around one table. Mr. Zurabyan answered, “Some people may have psychological problems. Certainly, if we want, we can organize a barrage of mutual accusations, but I think it is pointless. Today we must give up such work style and think of only one purpose, to form an elected, legitimate government in Armenia. One can give up those psychological excesses for that.”
Armen Martirosyan, the Heritage Party representative, said during a conversation with Aravot that such a development “is very hard” to imagine, since, according to him, pre-election alliances have a wider spectrum, a wider like-mindedness on existing problems, “I don’t think that such a process can develop providing only that one issue. At least, at the moment, however, nothing can be ever ruled out in politics. If that issue becomes such an issue that will lead to an agreement on political alliance, we will witness that too.”
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Artsvik Minasyan, an ARF MP, ruled out such a development at the moment. It was hard for him to predict what time would tell.
NELLY GRIGORYAN
