“I absolutely agree that Gagik Tsarukyan and the PAP are connected with business and they will become vulnerable in this sense after Serzh Sargsyan is reelected. It is already visible that independent steps of the PAP don’t please Serzh Sargsyan and he tries to employ different mechanisms of pressure against the PAP. And if he is not able to constrain them, naturally, the existence of the PAP as a political unit after the election will be under threat, because Serzh Sargsyan doesn’t need a political force that may constitute a threat. Added to that are financial capabilities. A political unit that carries great weight and has rather great potential is one thing and when money, finances are added to that is another thing,” Lyudmila Sargsyan, a representative of the ANC said during a conversation with Aravot today.
We communicated to Ms. Sargsyan the assurances of Mikayel Melkumyan, a Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) MP, that Gagik Tsarukyan’s businesses operated legally; there was no problem with taxes. Lyudmila Sargsyan responded in the following manner, “If they have no problem, then we shouldn’t worry. The political stage shouldn’t worry. Serzh Sargsyan always tries to gather damaging information on leaders of political forces. His main tool is damaging information, which he employs to constrain this or that political force. I cannot say what tools will be used against the PAP, but he already uses one against Vartan Oskanian. I am inclined to think that Vartan Oskanian will clear his name completely, but it is absolutely clear that the persecution is political, because they could have conducted an investigation on that issue two years ago, if there was anything that would suggest that there was corruption there. They gather damaging information to use it when it is necessary.”
As for the observation of Mikayel Melkumyan that it was not appropriate to compare Gagik Tsarukyan with Khachatur Sukiasyan in terms of business vulnerability, since there were 500 thousand votes behind them, Lyudmila Sargsyan said, “There were more votes behind the
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ANC, but it happened to Khachatur Sukiasyan. No one is ensured in this country, while the existing regime operates in the country and Serzh Sargsyan rules the country. I think no businessman, no enterprise is ensured against persecution. Therefore, I wouldn’t be so self-assured, if I were the Prosperous Armenia Party.”
In response to our question what her intuition as a woman and a politician told her about whether the PAP would cooperate with the ANC taking into account the fact that it would become a target of the current government, she said, “I think that rationality must have told them that the PAP would be more protected, if it cooperated with the ANC and we participated in the presidential election with a joint candidate. I think that two very serious political forces are able to free the people of this government.” In response to a question why the PAP hadn’t done it yet, in her opinion, the ANC MP said, “Perhaps, to maintain, not to jeopardize businesses.”
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
