“There are people in this team who were in power and we have come to you open-facedly. They would backbite about us. They would say we stole electricity, mazut, we stole money, we stole the cognac factory,” Hrant Bagratyan, the former Prime Minister, started his speech in this manner during the Aparan pre-election rally of the Armenian National Congress
(ANC), adding, “Well, if I or the President had stolen the cognac factory, would we have come to rally with you today? But when I come to power, I will say who has stolen what.”
Mr. Bagratyan expressed an idea in his speech, “We were no great shakes ourselves, but we didn’t see a normal force coming after us. That one is a billionaire, dude, we could have done it too.” www.aravot.am inquired from Mr. Bagratyan what he had meant, when he had said that they were no great shakes. Mr. Bagratyan responded, “I meant that we had not been ideal. No one is ideal, that’s all.”
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According to Hrant Bagratyan, the only force that has been in power and can conduct rallies open-facedly is the ANC, “There will be many promises, everything is written, planned page by page what they will do for villager, teacher, parturient, retiree. We don’t say we will give you a job, we will allow you to create a job. This taxi that is here will not be by license. A man will take and put the taxi sign on the car in the evening and drive. We will give you that freedom. You will not open a market by a license, in order that they may not allow each of you to buy a market, repress you and say that there should be their markets and supermarkets, you are not humans and you have to go and work in their markets for wages.”
Bagratyan also mentioned that Resco, Ingo, Nairi Insurance, Rosgosstrakh, all of them belonged to the establishment’s people and they, so to say, “fleeced” the people, “What insurance! It is a payment. If it is insurance, let there be competition. Let us establish a company that would do it not for 40 thousand, but for 8000.”
By the way, Hrant Bagratyan became a resident of Aparan today, in order to win the hearts of residents of Aparan. “He is a part-time resident of Aparan,” Myasnik Malkhasyan introduced him in this manner before the speech, Bagratyan laughed in response and corrected, “Not part-time, full-time.”
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
