Hovhannes Igityan, a former member of the Pan-Armenian National Movement (PANM) executive committee, will not criticize the newly-established Armenian National Congress Party (ANCP) that acts in accordance with “home-made democracy.”
– Mr. Igityan, on Saturday, the founding convention of the Armenian National Congress Party took place in the Karen Demirchyan Sports and Concert Complex. Firstly, I would like to know whether you participated in the convention as a former PANM member or whether you were invited.
– I didn’t participate in the convention. They called me and said that I could come and take my mandate, but I have stated many times that I am not a member of the ANC and couldn’t participate as a delegate with a mandate. If there had been an invitation, they had invited me, I might have gone.
– The new ANCP has elected the leadership. The executive committee consists of 45 members; 22 of them are from the former PANM, 22 from the ANC coalition initiative group, and Levon Ter-Petrossian. Those two lists of 22 people each had basically been drawn up in advance, and the convention just approved them, rather than the delegates proposed candidates for membership in the executive committee and elected by secret ballot. Mr. Igityan, what do you think of this way of electing the members of the executive committee, is this in line with democratic principles?
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– Who remember PANM conventions know that the delegates would not only propose candidates for membership in the executive committee from their seats, but also struggle to become a member of the PANM executive committee, and the way of struggle was to express one’s own opinion and to prove why one wanted to become a member of the executive committee. The candidate would complain about the activities of the outgoing executive committee, meet with party members, and put forward his opinion, his program…. This was the PANM, and this was democracy. And when two lists of 22 people each that are drawn up in advance according to the principle of parity are approved, I don’t accept that. However, I wouldn’t like to criticize, because it is a party convention with the home-made democracy they decided on; that was their decision, it seemed everyone in the hall agreed, there were no complaints. Regardless of that, I still have friends with whom I have met, talked. Many of them complain, but I suggested that they not complain to me; they should submit, otherwise, if they had something to say, they should have said it at the ANCP convention. I am not ready to disseminate all those complaints. I am not going to direct my political activities to that newly-established ANC Party. I think that in any case, it is an opposition party and will perhaps continue to struggle against illegal actions and the illegitimate government, and I welcome them anyway. And I, as a former PANM member, as a liberal democrat, will continue and will find an effective way to develop democracy and liberalism in Armenia, and it is obvious that I will not be alone.
– So is it possible that the figures adhering to liberal ideas who have left the ANC and you will establish a new party, will unite?
– I don’t know, time will tell, but one can clearly state that the liberal democratic pole is free these days; certainly, there are parties that adhere to that ideology one way or another, but not the ANC.
– Mr. Igityan, L. Ter-Petrossian declared that the goal of the Armenian National Congress Party was a “bourgeois democratic revolution.” In 2008, a task was undertaken to “destroy the regime of gangsters,” basically the way to achieve it is mentioned today, a “bourgeois democratic revolution.” Do you think it is possible?
– I think that everyone has the right to have his own opinion, and I think that everyone, including me, can be mistaken. I am always suspicious when one doesn’t point out his mistakes, or there is no one among 2000 people who has a different opinion. However, it was a subject, on which there could be discussion, but I didn’t see any discussion in the hall, and I don’t think that there will be such a discussion of fellow party members in the press. I am sorry, but I expressed my opinion long ago that the ANC was gradually becoming authoritarian, if not totalitarian. When one person says one thing, and everyone accepts that as an instruction, it is unacceptable for me. It is not in my character, I am a person who is loyal to liberal, democratic principles. There are people with whom it is all right. Every one chooses his own path.
– Ter-Petrossian expressed bewilderment at why the political circles of Armenia had been “up in arms” about their readiness to tear oligarchs away from the government and cooperate with the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP). He mentioned Khachatur Sukiasyan’s precedent, expressing conviction that “Gagik Tsarukyan has taken the same path today.” Firstly, is it right to compare K. Sukiasyan with G. Tsarukyan, in your opinion, and can you describe the steps taken by Tsarukyan as steps toward breaking away from the government?
– To start with, I haven’t noticed any excitement among society about those negotiations between the ANC and the PAP. The goal and the activities of a party should aim at communicating with the people, i.e. a party presents itself to society with its ideas, its theses, and society decides whether those theses are dear to it and decides whether to support that party or not. However, look what has happened; the ANC, the opposition of the time, had a large army of supporters in 2007-2008, even in 2009, that mass of people gradually depleted, wore away. Perhaps those negotiations were also one of the reasons for that, and the main work was on carrying out a bourgeois democratic revolution and tearing people away from the ruling pyramid…. If I was a member of that new party, I would express my opposite opinion in the executive committee or even at the convention, because it was stated from the platform that “I am a scientist, and to me, facts are important.” I am a scientist too, by the way, of exact sciences, and I am also guided by facts; if the people have become disappointed during five years of activities or have stepped away from the political struggle, it means that something’s wrong. Besides, I have stated since 2009 that the PANM was melting into the ANC, and it was not good; they even tried to exclude me from the ANC, not agreeing with me. However, Ter-Petrossian clearly stated that the PANM had not existed as an independent party in the past 5 years; it had put all its effort into the ANC, which is not right, in my opinion. Unfortunately, all those people who raised the issue of the PANM’s independence in the past were excluded from the PANM, and only those people who were for the PANM’s dissolution – or if they were not for it, they didn’t want or couldn’t express their opinion – were left in the PANM.
EMMA GABRIELYAN
Aravot Daily
