Power plant deal aimed at supporting Armenian authorities – politician
Arminfo
14 Apr 06
Yerevan, 14 April: “The so-called strategic partnership between
Armenia and Russia resembles the Soviet Union’s support for African
regimes,” the leader of the opposition National Democratic Union
[NDU], Vazgen Manukyan, said at the Zerkalo discussion club today.
He said that the money Armenia will receive from the sale of the fifth
unit of the Razdan thermal power plant will not reach ordinary
citizens and as a whole, the deal is totally aimed at supporting the
current authorities. The NDU leader gave a similar assessment to the
US Millennium Challenge Corporation as well. The corporation has
decided to allocate 235m dollars in the next few years on condition
that democratic reforms are carried out.
Manukyan said that this loan will only strengthen “the positions of
anti-democratic forces in the country”. “If the corporation suspends
the financing when elections are rigged, responsibility for that will
be placed on the opposition which will try to expose ballot-rigging,”
he said.
Asked by journalists whether the loan of the American corporation and
the commitments of Russia’s Gazprom to Armenia can be assessed as the
superpowers’ support for candidates to supreme power – Armenian
President Robert Kocharyan and Defence Minister Serzh Sarkisyan,
Manukyan said that such a version has the right to exist.
His opponent, the former prime minister and leader of the Christian
Democratic Union, Khosrov Arutyunyan, said that “he is not going to
comment on old wives’ tales”.