“I admire Davit Harutyunyan’s behavior and that protesting attitude of Khosrov Harutyunyan. I like it. What has happened to you that you make these assessments of those people? They presented the reality, they haven’t said more, they have said less, they objectively tried to present what there was in the framework of the norms they had adopted,” Vahagn Khachatryan, a member of the ANC and a former mayor of Yerevan, responded in this manner, when we asked him to comment on the latest report of the PACE Bureau Interim Committee, which was drawn up by the monitoring mission headed by Baroness Emma Nicholson, a member of the PACE, based on the monitoring carried out on May 6. During a conversation with www.aravot.am, in response to our question whether he liked that report and strict assessments, Vahagn Khachatryan laughed, “Did I like it? It is just strange that they paid attention to
that. There is a reality – they diligently wrote down all our observations, which we had noticed, during meetings with us and what they had noticed, which they certainly didn’t share with us. Those of them who were in the polling stations on the election day, I met and talked with them too. They were politically correct and didn’t try to make assessments in the polling station, in particular, fulfilling their duty for that day. It was clearly noticeable that they were not excited about coming to Armenia, being in the polling stations for 10-12 hours and sitting on those chairs, on which no one can sit for more than 5 minutes – on those uncomfortable school chairs. However, they said one thing, at least there was such a conversation during meetings with me – I met with them twice. They always wrote what they had seen. In that sense they are honest. However, the most important thing depends on the political decision what assessments they will make. At the end of the day, they are to decide. They present the picture, the political body decides at the Council of Europe, given the overall situation in Armenia and the expectations they have from Armenia. Now they have decided to present the reality for some reason, which has hurt the current government very much.”
Mr. Khachatryan doesn’t rule out that the current government made promises and hasn’t kept them, because of which such a report was made, “Perhaps they actually didn’t expect such an election.”
In response to our observation that there had been nothing unexpected, the opposition had always said after elections that they had been rigged, the same electoral violations, what had been unexpected, Mr. Khachatryan said, “Perhaps, there were worse than this, the 2008 election was worse than this one. They probably think that Armenia should have changed its standards of holding elections, I mean, this side made promises and they had expectations that they would be fulfilled. However, they didn’t even come close to fulfilling those promises. At the end of the day, if one compares this election with the 2007 parliamentary election, there is clearly a regress.”
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In response to a question whether one could say that Serzh Sargsyan’s relations with the outside world had become worse, Vahagn Khachatryan said, “It is an issue of promises, I believe. They tried to be mild toward the government, including also financial aid, they turned a blind eye to some cases, for example, regarding the assessments of the events of March 1, they were not consistent. Perhaps as a result of that, promises were made concerning the oligarchy, corruption and economy, perhaps, they made promises, but well, nothing has been fulfilled. My friends and I, for instance, presented the situation in Armenia –social, pre-election, post-election, everything. Now they, accepting that and adding theirs to that, one can say, made an assessment, which means that they showed a yellow card to Armenia that ‘you know what, stop lying, we are not that easy to deceive anymore.’ Now what will happen next – they will be consistent, voting lists… people with the same first and last name; these people will write, take into consideration all that, in that case.”
According to Vahagn Khachatryan, this report of the international monitoring mission is a signal and a warning before the presidential election, “It is a signal
that ‘look, change, otherwise you will regret’ – one should consider this as such a signal.”
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
