Radio Liberty, Czech rep.
March 9 2007
Hovannisian Says Not Responsible For Opposition Discord
By Irina Hovannisian
Former Foreign Minister Raffi Hovannisian on Friday denied any
responsibility for the failure by several Armenian opposition parties
to form an electoral alliance, insisting that he never sought to
become its top leader.
His Zharangutyun (Heritage) party looked set last month to team up
with three other opposition groups for the May 12 parliamentary
elections. Those included the Hanrapetutyun (Republic) party, the
National Democratic Union (AZhM), and the former ruling Armenian
Pan-National Movement (HHSh).
Talks between their eventually broke down for reasons that are still
not fully clear. Some of their participants privately blame
Hovannisian for the fiasco, saying that his uncompromising desire to
top the list of the would-be bloc’s list of candidates precluded an
agreement.
Hovannisian rejected the claims, saying that the pre-election deal,
which would have boosted opposition chances in the elections, fell
through because of the presidential ambitions of some of his
partners. `One or two of my partners have announced their
presidential aspirations, which I think is quite telling,’ said the
former U.S. citizen.
One of them, AZhM leader Vazgen Manukian, confirmed this week plans
to participate in next year’s Armenian presidential election despite
his party’s decision to boycott the May 12 vote. Manukian told RFE/RL
that during the talks he suggested that the would-be bloc have a
collective leadership and decide who should top its slate by a draw.
While admitting that he rejected the idea, Hovannisian claimed that
he was ready to cede the five top places on the opposition list to
the other parties. `We had no problem with the list or presidential
candidacies,’ he said. `The sequence [of parliamentary candidates]
was never important to us.’
The opposition talks were initiated by Hanrapetutyun’s outspoken
leader, Aram Sarkisian. They initially also involved the People’s
Party of Stepan Demirchian, President Robert Kocharian’s main
challenger in the last presidential election. The four parties
reportedly rejected Demirchian’s implicit demands to endorse his 2008
presidential bid.