The article published by Sasun Mikayelyan in The Armenian Times yesterday, which criticized the ANC, and Levon Ter-Petrossian, the ANC leader and the founding President of the Republic of Armenia, in particular, was followed by the first president’s response, in which Levon Ter-Petrossian didn’t answer the questions that concerned not only Sasun Mikayelyan, but also supporters of the ANC. It is about the real reasons for the first president’s refusal to participate in the presidential election, wasting the huge resources of the ANC, as a result of cooperation with the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP).
Let us remind that an internal agreement has been reached in the ANC not to comment on the ideas expressed by Sasun Mikayelyan. Talking about Levon Ter-Petrossian’s response, at the request of www.aravot.am, Lyudmila Sargsyan, a member of the ANC political council and the leader of the Social Democrat Hunchakian Party (SDHP), said: “We share the president’s ideas about Sasun Mikayelyan.” www.aravot.am also asked Eduard Sharmazanov, the press secretary of the RPA and a deputy leader of the National Assembly, to express an opinion on the observations of Sasun Mikayelyan, a former member of the RPA and still a member of the ANC, and the first president’s response. Sharmazanov said that this was “their own business,” and he didn’t deem politically correct to express an opinion. In response to a question what he thought of the first president’s unclear answers about not announcing his candidacy for the presidential election or not preparing a worthy replacement for him, our interlocutor reminded that he had already expressed his opinion about the first president’s refusal to announce his candidacy, i.e. age was just an excuse, because François Mitterrand, Jacques Chirac, Shimon Peres, and others had governed countries at older ages.
In response to a question whether post-election developments were possible, since, according to some analyses, the opposition was going to have its say after the election, and taking into account that the ANC members had expressed an opinion many times that not participating in the election, Levon Ter-Petrossian hadn’t left politics, Sharmazanov said: “One thing is clear for me; politicians – at least from the opposition camp – don’t announce their candidacies when they see that they don’t enjoy necessary trust in society. Various oppositionists themselves have given the reasons for the opposition’s refusal to announce a candidate.”
Nelly GRIGORYAN
