COMMUNISTS READY TO CONTEST ELECTIONS SEPARATELY
By Ruzanna Stepanian

Radio Free Europe, Czech Rep.
Aug. 24, 2006

Armenian communists are determined not to ally themselves with other
political forces in next year’s parliamentary elections, their leader
Ruben Tovmasian said on Thursday, stressing that they don’t want
‘to share their loss or victory.’

"We had been talked into giving our support to groups and parties we
had nothing in common with before," Tovmasian said. "Now if we lose
we will accept this loss as ours, and if we manage to get into the
parliament, it will become a huge step of the Communist Party."

Tovmasian attributed the communist fiasco at the 2003 parliamentary
elections, when the party failed to win a single seat in the National
Assembly for the first time in 87 years, to its cooperation with
different opposition forces at different stages of the election
campaign. Among those supported by the Communist Party of Armenia
(HKK) then were opposition leaders Stepan Demirchian and Artashes
Geghamian. The party had also joined the so-called 17+1 opposition
alliance.

"That cooperation completely disorientated our electorate," Tovmasian
said, adding that they also want to field their own candidates at
the 2008 presidential elections ‘to redress those mistakes’.

The HKK that had its last presidential candidate in 1998 suffered
several major splits after the death of its respected leader Sergey
Badalian in 1999, which gave rise to several parties calling themselves
communists. Recently, Tovmasian brushed aside the calls of the splinter
groups to join efforts to succeed in the upcoming elections.

The leader of the staunchly pro-Russian party that stands for the
restoration of state control of the economy, says that the only
condition on which they can agree to form an alliance with other
forces today is: "If they agree to struggle for social justice,
against corruption and criminals, to improve the lives of ordinary
people, to push for Armenia’s joining the Russia-Belarus union."