RADICAL OPPOSITION PARTY ‘FUNDED BY OFFICIALS, OLIGARCHS’
By Astghik Bedevian and Ruzanna Stepanian
Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
April 17 2007
Armenia’s most radical opposition party plotting a post-election
"democratic revolution" claimed on Tuesday to be secretly financed
by unnamed government officials and government-connected businessmen.
"They have asked not to be identified for now," Smbat Ayvazian,
a leader of the Hanrapetutyun (Republic) party, told RFE/RL. "Maybe
we will able to disclose their names in 20 days."
"Realizing that the country is on the wrong track, they are giving us,
albeit with a lot of fear, some financial assistance so that we can
run our campaign offices, train our proxies and solve some propaganda
issues," he said. "Perhaps the fears of those businessmen and officials
will disappear with the change of the current political atmosphere."
Hanrapetutyun kicked off its election campaign last Thursday with a
rally in Yerevan, during which it urged supporters to gear up for a
campaign of anti-government demonstrations that could follow the May
12 parliamentary elections. Its chairman Aram Sarkisian and other
leaders claimed that the vote will almost certainly be rigged.
Ayvazian repeated their assertions that Hanrapetutyun will not
content itself with a handful of parliament seats as its key aim is
regime change. "The opposition has had 25-30 deputies in the current
[131-member] parliament but failed to solve a single issue," he argued.
Ayvazian added that the alleged funding by government-linked wealthy
individuals is essential for the realization of Hanrapetutyun’s
plans. "In case our financial issues are solved, it is evident that
these authorities will have no chance to keep plundering the country,"
he said.
Hanrapetutyun’s radical agenda is clearly not shared by other, larger
opposition parties that believe it is possible to prevent large-scale
fraud. The Orinats Yerkir Party of former parliament speaker Artur
Baghdasarian is one of them.
"I can’t claim that there will certainly be mass falsifications,"
Baghdasarian said on Tuesday. "I will be talk about that in early
May. The election campaign has only just begun, and we are still in
the process of analyzing and examining things."
But Baghdasarian did accuse the authorities of creating "numerous
obstacles" to Orinats Yerkir’s election campaign. He complained in
particular that the party is unable to place campaign billboards in
Yerevan and other parts of the country.
"They say there is no space," he told a news conference. "But you can
see that the campaign billboards in Yerevan belong to the Republican
Party, the Prosperous Armenia Party, and Dashnaktsutyun. The governing
parties do not face any obstacles."
The ex-speaker also claimed that authorities in small towns across the
country are obstructing campaign meetings organized by Orinats Yerkir.