Criticism has been voiced recently in regard to non-participation of the Armenian National Congress (ANC) in local elections – the Congress either doesn’t have human resources to participate, or has stopped being an alternative to the government, which is why it doesn’t participate. In this regard, Zoya Tadevosyan, the founder of socio-political initiative The People’s Government, a member of the ANC, made a comment during a conversation with www.aravot.am in the following manner, “One can say anything – it has, it doesn’t have resources – most importantly, one should have a debate on an alternative to the government, because one should have governmental resources to be an alternative to the government, one should have the mechanisms, using which the government has been able to reproduce itself for many years. The critics should be a bit objective, one cannot criticize in vain, just to discredit. If there is real criticism based on concrete issues, I accept that. But if they criticize just to discredit the political force, it is immoral. Every political force can suffer a defeat today. The governmental force itself may lose, if it doesn’t engage in bribery, if it doesn’t use its leverage. Let them take into account the Election Code and conduct the elections in accordance with the letter of the law – let them not bribe anyone, no compulsion, no coercion, let them make no promises. In that case, I wonder how many votes the government will win. One should not accuse all the time. If we want to change something in our country, we should do everything to jointly take one path. At the end of the day, we don’t care who says what about us. We have or don’t have human resources. When they say that we don’t have human resources, do they think that those are the ones who leave the country? People who have stood by us and have had no job for many years and have been neglected as humans, as citizens in this country are the ones who leave the country. Whose resource is the country? What do they mean by saying human resources? We are residents, citizens of one country; we have to be sorry about that.”
The press wrote that the Congress was convinced that there would be election fraud and there was no hope that normal and fair elections would be conducted, which was the reason why they didn’t want to participate in the local elections. In response to our question whether such an excuse for non-participation in the elections was grounded, since there was election fraud in the parliamentary election and it was expected that there would be election fraud in the presidential election too, Zoya Tadevosyan said, “I can speak for The People’s Government. 2 members of The People’s Government are candidates for the Ashtarak council. We don’t care whether we will lose, win votes or not, we just try. I think there are members of our parties who announce their candidacies. It is not like no one announces his candidacy. Perhaps, it is just an issue of a candidate for the top position. Say, a candidacy for mayor and you know that in our country, it takes place with the go-ahead. What shall we do then? Shall we ask the government to give the go-ahead? We don’t want their go-ahead.”
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
