COMMUNIST PARTY LEADER IS NOT GOING TO RESIGN

Noyan Tapan
May 15 2007

YEREVAN, MAY 15, NOYAN TAPAN. Ruben Tovmasian, First Secretary of
Central Committee of Communist Party of Armenia, categorically
refuted rumors about his resignation. In his interview to Noyan
Tapan correspondent he stated that these rumors are false and do
not correspond to reality. At the same time, R. Tovmasian found it
difficult to mention the aim of their spreading and their possible
source.

The First Secretary of Central Committee of Communist Party who
received less than 1% votes in the May 12 elections, said that in the
future the party will analyse its results and will decide what to
do. In the elections of 2003 the Communist Party received a little
more than 2% votes and after those elections Communist Party leader
of that time, Vladimir Darbinian resigned.

In R. Tovmasian’s words, "no elections were held in Armenia, just
drawing of results took place" and the fact that the parliamentary
elections will be falsified by 100% was forecast by him as early as
in January. In his words, no ideological dispute took place among
parties during the election campaign, instead of it they competed for
"who and where should give out money."

And the people, as R. Tovmasian affirmed, could not but vote for the
party, which promised it free medical service, education and social
justice. At the same time he said that especially in rural areas the
people has been brought to abject poverty and electoral bribe of 5-10
thousand drams before spring sowing seemed a "salvation" to them.

In R. Tovmasian’s words, at first the opposition was united and it
was difficult to say why it was splitted. At the same time he said
that the Communist Party of Armenia could not unite with opposition
forces due to lack of ideological communities.