OPPOSITION ALLIANCE TALKS COLLAPSE
By Ruzanna Stepanian

Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
Feb 28 2007

Last-ditch attempts by several Armenian opposition parties to form an
election alliance have ended in failure, it was confirmed on Wednesday.

The parties led by former Prime Ministers Aram Sarkisian and Vazgen
Manukian and former Foreign Minister Raffi Hovannisian failed to iron
out their differences in late-night negotiations on Tuesday. All
there men were tight-lipped about reasons for the fiasco, which is
another good news for the Armenian government.

Sarkisian seemed particularly disappointed with the collapse of the
talks, saying that his radical Hanrapetutyun (Republic) party will
have to run for parliament on its own. He confirmed that Hanrapetutyun
will not team up even with the former ruling Armenian Pan-National
Movement, another opposition party involved in the talks.

"I wouldn’t like to use details of those negotiation for attacking
anyone," Sarkisian told RFE/RL. "I think those details won’t be of
any use."

But the outspoken oppositionist did say that he suspects some of his
potential allies of playing into the government’s hands.

"Unfortunately, in Armenia and dictatorial countries in general there
are too many such parties," he said.

When asked to name them, Sarkisian said, "The public will see that
during the election campaign. I think the public already has suspicions
about one or another party. I don’t have to specify them."

Manukian also refused to elaborate on the opposition discussions. "I
don’t want to play the blame game," he told RFE/RL. "That’s just
the way it is. We failed for some reason, and I don’t want to make
any comments."

Manukian also said later in the day that his National Democratic Union
(AZhM), one of Armenia’s oldest opposition parties, has decided to
boycott the May 12 elections. The veteran politician has advocated
such a boycott in the past, arguing that the country’s culture of
electoral fraud leaves little room for the opposition.

The nominal chairman of Hovannisian’s Zharangutyun party, Vartan
Khachatrian, may have had Manukian in mind when he complained that
some unspecified participants of the talks were skeptical about the
chances of an opposition bloc making a strong showing in the May
12 elections. "Some organizations believed that it is impossible to
radically change this situation with this process and this make-up,"
he said, refusing to name anyone. "There were also organizations
that set conditions pertaining to the name of the alliance and their
participation in that alliance."

"We did everything in our power to reach agreement and always
remained open to mutual concessions," Khachatrian told RFE/RL. He
said Hovannisian was even ready not to occupy any of the five top
spots in the would-be bloc’s list of candidates.

Khachatrian added that Zharangutyun will decide later on Wednesday
whether or not it will contest the elections. Hovannisian suggested
last week that doing that single-handedly would make no sense.