The expanded meeting of the Republic Party political council has just ended. During that meeting, a decision was made under Vazgen Sargsyan’s motto “Care for this country” to leave the ANC. Party leader Aram Sargsyan warned in advance that after the meeting, he would not give any interview or make any comment for mass media.
After the meeting, he, Suren Abrahamyan and Smbat Ayvazyan immediately came out and quickly got in their cars. During the meeting, it was not allowed to photograph anything, they even didn’t allow some journalists to enter the building.
Artak Zeynalyan, a member of the Republic Party political council, informed that during the meeting, all people present had expressed their opinions and there had been no contradiction, no controversy between their opinions, “Those basically added to each other with the explanation that it was the time and it was right to cease membership in the Armenian National Congress. And the decision was made that the Republic Party ceased its membership in the ANC. It was made unanimously, but the arguments are different.”
In response to a question what the arguments were, based on which the decision had been made, Mr. Zeynalyan said that they could make public only the arguments that were mentioned in the statement.
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In response to a question whether it was possible that the Republic Party would cooperate with other forces from then on, Mr. Zeynalyan said that according to the declaration that was signed, the member-parties of the alliance maintained their
independence, even could participate in general elections separately, “We certainly don’t rule out that we will continue cooperation and will cooperate with all socio-political forces. We have traveled a very hard road with them in recent years, there are a lot of separate things connecting us with them. There are also parties, with which we were in an alliance in 2003. Those relations should be maintained. In any situation, we can establish new formats of cooperation, if there is a need for that, but at the moment, we unilaterally, without checking with any political force, have decided to cease our membership in the ANC.”
In response to our question in regard to participation of the Republic Party in the presidential election, Mr. Zeynalyan said that Aram Sargsyan had already said under which conditions he would be nominated or would not be nominated, “This issue was not discussed at the meeting of the political council today.”
Only this one issue of leaving the ANC was on the agenda of the party political council. It seemed that everything had been decided, even the text of the statement was predictable for all of us, however, there was a heated discussion at the meeting and it lasted for 3 hours. Therefore, we inquired what problems they had faced concerning the final statement. Mr. Zeynalyan explained that by many opinions, “Opinions are not only desirable, but also mandatory at the Republic Party political council meeting. We make our decision listening to different opinions and discussions are very heated at the political council meeting. The solution of an issue on the agenda is not predetermined, there is a discussion, there are debates, anyway, and there are also discussions on the text – what emphases should be made.”
During his last press conference, Aram Sargsyan considered cooperation between the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) and the ANC as the contradiction between the ANC and the Republic Party, but Mr. Zeynalyan avoided explaining whether one of the motives for ceasing membership was that. We also tried to get clarification whether the rumors about cooperation between the Republic Party and the Heritage Party were grounded, Artak Zeynalyan said, “That issue was not discussed today, our decision that we made is not checked with any political force. This is a unilateral decision and there are no discussions on cooperation on the agenda.”
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
