Vahagn Khachatryan, the Armenian National Congress (ANC) candidate for mayor, is ready to entrust members of the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) with the task of waste collection, if they do it well.
* At the final rally of the Armenian National Congress (ANC) before the Yerevan City Council election, Levon Ter-Petrossian praised you quite a lot. However, he had dismissed you from the chairmanship of the Yerevan City Council executive committee in the past.
* No, no such thing happened; no one dismissed me, particularly given the fact that the chairmanship of the Yerevan City Council executive committee was quite protected by the law, but such a thing didn’t happen. It was just that the constitutional provision regarding local self-government took effect in February 1996, and in accordance with that, the activities of not only me, but also executive committee chairmen of 36 districts of the Republic of Armenia were ceased. Temporary replacements were appointed.
* You weren’t appointed as temporary replacement.
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* It is a different matter. Ter-Petrossian didn’t dismiss me. Ter-Petrossian decided that I should become his advisor. If we had had certain problems, I wouldn’t have been appointed as advisor. I think that at least, that is obvious. It is just that it was found more appropriate to appoint another person as Yerevan’s governor who was later replaced by Vano Siradeghyan. Therefore, there was no contradiction. It was just a business approach, which was very natural. In many cases, rotations within the system of government are correct. One of the problems of our current system of government is that society sees the same people all the time.
* Naira Zohrabyan, the secretary of the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) parliamentary group, states all the time that there are arrangements with the ANC and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) to cooperate during the election. A post-election coalition is not ruled out either. The Heritage Party seems to play a role of a “black swan”; it accepts and acknowledges neither the opposition, nor the government.
* We discuss the possibility of joint work. Last time we were participating in an event, it was publicly said that it was possible to act jointly. Perhaps there is a need for mildly clarifying the Heritage Party’s statement to vote for the non-government candidate in the post-election process. Perhaps there is a need for discussing additional terms, which is very natural, but it will happen after the election. At this stage, we communicate and have no problem with agreeing on certain issues. I think that the cooperation will become clearer and broader in the next couple of days.
* In the last week of the election campaign, there has been a lot of talk in the opposition camp that people from the regions are reregistered in Yerevan by the government to vote for the ruling party’s candidate in the election. However, the law clearly stipulates that only persons who are registered no later than 6 months before the election have a right to vote. Do you think the government just works untidily?
* An official statement was released the other day that 3300 people had been added to the voter registration lists; those are the people who are not registered, but are recorded. It is in accordance with the law. As for the other reregistrations, I don’t know. There is talk. If it was done, it was done before the presidential election. Now we are at the stage of checks, but there is no change of composition in the voter registration lists as yet. The lists that are available to us are still the same. If there are changes when the final lists are made public, then it is a reality.
* The opposition has always had a problem with keeping votes. That problem exists in this election too, and everyone states publicly that they will preserve the votes cast for them this time. Are there elaborated programs? How will it be done?
* A task of checking all passports has been taken on, because we have information that people intend to come and vote instead of others. If there is confusion, it will be a warning for us that something is going on there. We have instructed our members in commissions and poll-watchers not to allow more than 15 people to be in polling places. If these processes start, we have prepared in advance to stop them, even to stop the election, to demand that the Central Election Commission (CEC) and Electoral District Commission (EDC) take measures.
* The ANC invested quite a serious resource into the 2008 presidential election, but it was not possible to prevent electoral fraud.
* How come it wasn’t possible? We prevented it, all right. What did you expect us to do? We weren’t allowed to file a lawsuit in the Constitutional Court. The events of March 1 happened for that reason alone. Why, we did everything, we had everything, we had evidence, we held peaceful rallies and waited for the day of filing a petition in the Constitutional Court. The government knew quite well what it meant; they knew quite well that they would not be able to fix all that. OK, a serious document was prepared, and we did whatever one could have done; we had all the necessary evidence, but we were not allowed to submit that evidence freely. It was submitted when there was a state of emergency in Yerevan, when many of us were not in town, were not engaged in public activities, and more than 150 people were arrested. If you think that we weren’t able, you can think so. But I think otherwise.
* In 2009, no political force treated the Yerevan City Council election as seriously as now. What has changed?
* The events of March 1, 2008, had transpired, the main political forces were involved in a coalition, the ANC was the struggling opposition, there was also the Heritage party, with which we had not been able to come to an agreement in the pre-election period; perhaps there were certain expectations from the government of the time. But four years have passed now, everyone has seen that the government hasn’t lived up to the expectations; the government continues to ruin the country using the same methods, there are no prospects of development, people leave in whatever way possible. 250 thousand people have left in the past five years; this is a serious argument, so that political forces also realize that this model of governance, the government will contribute nothing to the country’s development. Now I am happy that everyone has realized that this election is political.
* This is also the last chance of the opposition, since the next election is in four years.
* No, there isn’t a more important political event from the temporal perspective, and everyone has really realized the importance of the issue, except for the RPA, which still tries to pretend that this is just an election of Yerevan’s governor. However, we can offer them that opportunity, if we are elected. If the RPA carries out, say, waste collection well, we can give it to them. Our style will be different; there will be a competition, and who will try to engage in good economic activities in individual fields in town will be welcome.
* Let’s try to analyze in retrospect; wouldn’t the ANC had put up a more serious struggle for the mayorship today, if it had assumed the offices in the city council in 2009?
* Supposedly, yes, but actually, no, because we couldn’t work there, since that city council was formed as a result of a rigged election. You should also take into account the political situation. But at the end of the day, past experience has shown that we were right, and that city council doesn’t exist for residents of Yerevan. You may say, “If you had been inside, you would have shown it there.” It is a different matter, but in reality the city council elected through a rigged election couldn’t have met the expectations of the residents of Yerevan.
* The ANC has made a request to the Attorney General to check the legality of Taron Margaryan’s property. Are you for this work style personally; it doesn’t seem your style?
* It is not a matter of style. But there is another thing in my style that concerns accountability. Everyone should answer for his actions. There was no other way available to us. If a man does so, if he and his friends hold government offices and act from a very interesting standpoint; they assume the role of the nation’s savior. I haven’t accepted and don’t accept that. Let us put all those saviors next to each other and tell them that we want to get rid of them and ask what they want. If they want to get rid of us, let them say so. Tigran Sargsyan said: “I want to get rid of you, stand up and leave!” There is a similar savior in Malatya-Sebastia. Therefore, my approach is within that framework. As opposed to the others, I am a politician, and one needs transparency and readiness to answer for his deeds in politics.
* Doesn’t it look like a witch-hunt?
* No. It is a fact that has been put forward by them. If we have made up something…; Khachikyan who undergoes punishment now, who is to blame? If they had kept him in check, it wouldn’t have happened. That is the issue; we should learn.
Interviewed NELLY GRIGORYAN
Aravot Daily
