FORMER HANRAPETUTYUN MEMBERS WANT TO CREATE NEW PARTY

Armenpress
Sept 6, 2005

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 6, ARMENPRESS: Albert Bazeyan, a former senior
member of Armenia’s most radical opposition Hanrapetutyun (Republic)
party, who abandoned the party together with six other senior members
of its ruling board last week, questioned today the party leader,
Aram Sarkisian’s ‘constant’ promises to force president Kocharian
and his administration to step down through a revolution.

Speaking to a news conference Bazeyan argued that no political force is
able to carry out a revolution all alone. “If you want to carry out a
revolution you must have a clearly-designed plan of actions,” he said.

Bazeyan cited Aram Sarkisian’s increasingly pro-Western orientation
and uncompromising stance against the authorities as the main reasons
of why they left the party. “The Hanrapetutyun party has turned away
from Vazgen Sarkisian’s (Aram Sarkisian’s elder brother, a former prime
minister killed in 1999 parliament attack) ideology,’ Bazeyan argued.

Bazeyan also admitted to having plans to establish a new party,
but added that lack of money is a problem. Vagharshak Harutunian, a
former defense minister, who also left the party, said 75 percent of
Hanrapetutyun’s regional chapters said they would leave the party too.