Armenia opposition preparing large-scale protests

ITAR-TASS News Agency
April 12, 2004 Monday 5:33 AM Eastern Time

By Tigrain Liloyan

Water cannons and trailers with barbed wire were moved to the
presidential palace in the Armenian capital Yerevan on Monday.

The opposition, which urges for the resignation of President Robert
Kocharyan, is going to begin a meeting in the afternoon and march to
the parliament’s building and offices of the presidential
administration.

The opposition accuses Kocharyan of “seizure of power as a result of
rigged elections” in 2003.

The Armenian Constitutional Court has review a plea from the
opposition about legitimacy of the presidential elections last year
and ruled that the final count of votes was correct, simultaneously
recommending the conduction of a referendum on confidence in
authorities within a year.

Now that this timeline is gone, the opposition demands the referendum,
but the parliament has rejected the idea.

Having failed to rally large numbers of people for protests on Friday
and Saturday, which were not permitted by authorities, the opposition
pins much hopes of Monday’ actions.

“This is a decisive day,” a secretary of the oppositionist
parliamentary faction Justice, Viktor Dallakyam, told Itar-Tass.

He said columns of members of the opposition would march to provinces
in order to “break through police cordons” and to lead provincial
oppositionists to the capital.

Meanwhile, the president said authorities “have enough resources in
order to curb political extremism in the country with political
means”.

The parliamentary majority declared on Monday that it would not attend
plenary sittings of the National Assembly on April12-14.

Parliament leader Artur Bagdasaryan said the decision was made “in
order to avoid an artificial exacerbation of the political situation”.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress