Is Not a Movement www.aravot.am inquired of Khachatur Kokobelyan, a member of the National Assembly and the leader of the Free Democrats Party, what the end of this movement of Raffi Hovhannisyan would be, in his opinion. He replied: “In our opinion, it is not a movement, let us put this aside, I promise I will talk about it soon.” In response to our question what had prevented the opposition from uniting in the city council election, because there had been prerequisites for unity, Mr. Kokobelyan said: “I sense that the opposition can act jointly in terms of ideology, but I think it is quite necessary for the political forces that represented the real opposition to rise above personal ambitions and rally around a specific task, to achieve a
specific task. And I don’t think it is realistic for adherents to different ideas and approaches to act jointly. I think it is impossible from merely political perspective.” In response to our observation that all opposition forces said that they struggled against the regime, and everybody’s task seemed to be the same, Khachatur Kokobelyan said: “It has become very humorous these days to talk about such things, against the regime etc. I think that one should do that not only with rhetoric, but also with specific actions and everyday work. Unfortunately, let our oppositionists forgive me, but lots of oppositionists, including opposition political forces, act from an election to an election, and they consider only elections as opportunities to express themselves or to achieve something. And I think that the opposition is not so strong in Armenia these days because of this very strategy’s being wrong and we, oppositionists, should acknowledge our share of the blame for the situation that exists these days.”
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
