Hovhannes Igityan, a member of the PANM executive committee, has spoken highly of Hrant Bagratyan’s candidacy on many occasions. Also, Yerjanik Abgaryan, a member of the PANM executive committee, told The Square: “Bagratyan should be supported; I am for active struggle and will support him personally.”
However, on January 25, the joint session of the newly-elected PANM executive committee and the PANM national council after which the party stated that it would support none of the candidates, fully approving of the decision made by the Armenian National Congress (ANC) political council on December 27, 2012, not to support any candidate in the 2013 presidential election. www.aravot.am inquired of Yerjanik Abgaryan, a member of the PANM executive committee, whether it hadn’t been possible to convince his fellow party members, or what had really happened that the PANM had made a decision after the session not to support anyone. Mr. Abgaryan said during a conversation with us: “I participated in the PANM executive committee session. No issue about endorsing or not endorsing was discussed at the session. Other issues were discussed.”
Y. Abgaryan assured during a conversation with us that he stuck to his statements.
Hovhannes Igityan stated: “Nothing special has happened; there was a decision of the ANC not to support, and it has remained. There is a situation in which something is wrong. It would be ideal, if the whole opposition rose up against this electoral system and the government, boycotted and showed that it should not be so and had the majority of society follow it. However, it didn’t happen. I don’t see sentiment among society to boycott the election. What should society do then? Society cannot be a prisoner of whether the opposition will reach a certain agreement or not. There is another important factor; the ANC says that this regime should be destroyed, but questions arise among society what model they will create. Hrant Bagratyan shows a model following which society can exist. So Hrant Bagratyan offers an answer to the question what will happen to us. There are contentious
Read also
points there on which one can debate. We constantly talk about a joint candidate, thus, we have been offered a good opportunity to show that we don’t have ambitions, it doesn’t matter for us who the candidate is, and we are ready to rally to him.”
In response to our question why the majority of ANC members hadn’t supported this position, H. Igityan said: “Everyone expected that Levon Ter-Petrossian would announce his candidacy. The ANC was convinced to the last man that he was the most appropriate candidate. Knowing how dangerous it was, everyone was ready to follow him to the finish. However, the fact is that he hasn’t announced his candidacy. It seems to me that many people need time to digest this. It is natural, since the ANC was an institution established thanks to Levon Ter-Petrossian. Hrant Bagratyan hasn’t appeared out of the blue. However, regardless of whether he will be elected or not, he shows that if the Republic of Armenia was a civilized country, how a candidate would behave, what program he would present to society, what economic and political solutions he would offer. This is what I like about Hrant Bagratyan.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
