ARMENIAN PARTY UNDECIDED ABOUT ITS STANCE FOLLOWING PARLIAMENTARY ELECTION

Arminfo
15 May 07

Yerevan, 15 May: The Armenian Revolutionary Federation – Dashnaktsutyun
[ARFD] has not made a decision yet about its place in the fourth
parliament, according to a statement made by the party today.

However, no matter where the party is going to be, it will try to prove
that the problems the country faces can be resolved in a short period
of time if the ARFD has a significant majority in the government,
Armen Rustamyan, the ARFD supreme body representative, said. He also
said that it is unlikely that a ruling coalition will be formed in
parliament because one of the ruling forces, the Republican Party,
has received the absolute majority of the votes and is able to form
a cabinet on its own. Rustamyan said that the ARFD will continue to
cooperate with the RPA but not necessarily as a member of a coalition.

Rustamyan did not consider the parliamentary election outcome – in
particular, the unprecedented success of the RPA – to be unexpected. "I
think that each party received as much votes as it was supposed
to," Rustamyan said. He also said that the party will continue its
cooperation with the president.

Vahan Hovhannisyan, the party’s bureau member and deputy speaker
of parliament, said that because there is a force that enjoys
an absolute majority in parliament, the formation of a collation
will be artificial, and the participation of a political force not
having a majority in that coalition will be formal. "Even if we are
offered as many ministerial posts in the cabinet as we have now,
our participation in a coalition will be merely formal as we don’t
have a decisive number of seats in parliament," he said.

[Passage omitted: Hovhannisyan avoids direct answers on some questions;
Arminfo speculates that the ARFD will be in opposition]