ORINATS YERKIR HIT BY ANOTHER DEFECTION
By Ruzanna Khachatrian

Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
May 23 2007

The opposition Orinats Yerkir Party has lost one of its nine seats
in Armenia’s newly elected parliament as a result of yet another
high-profile defection from its ranks.

Samvel Balasanian, a prominent party figure, confirmed on Wednesday
reports that he quit Orinats Yerkir after securing his reelection to
the 131-member National Security in a single-member district in the
northwestern Shirak region. Balasanian said he did so in order to
concentrate on the needs of people living in the constituency that
partly encompasses Armenia’s second largest city of Gyumri.

The Gyumri-based businessman, who owns the country’s third-biggest
brewery, denied that he was forced to defect from Orinats Yerkir by the
Armenian government. "No, there was no pressure on me," he told RFE/RL.

The move is a further blow to the party of former parliament speaker
Artur Baghdasarian which is reeling from its worse-than-expected
performance in the May 12 parliamentary elections. Baghdasarian and
his associates have rejected as fraudulent their official results,
which showed Orinats Yerkir winning less than 7 percent of the vote,
and plan to challenge them in the Constitutional Court.

Balasanian, who used to lead the Orinats Yerkir faction in the
outgoing Armenian parliament, was the only party candidate who won
a parliament seat under the so-called majoritarian system. Another
Orinats Yerkir candidate, Hakob Hakobian, defected to the governing
Republican Party (HHK) shortly before getting elected in another
single-mandate constituency.

Heghine Bisharian, the number two figure in the party leadership,
refused to comment on Balasanian’s exit, saying only that she finds it
"inexplicable."

The Yerevan daily "Aravot" suggested that the defection was a
government "precondition" for his reelection to the parliament. The
paper noted that Hakobian is the co-owner of another major brewery,
concluding sarcastically that beer business is "incompatible with
membership in Orinats Yerkir."

But Balasanian dismissed such suggestions. "If I wanted to sell out, I
would have done it earlier, during the pre-election period," he argued.

Orinats Yerkir had already been hit by mass defections of its
parliamentarians, virtually all of them government-connected
businessmen, in the spring of last year. The move precipitated the
party’s ouster from the ruling coalition and Baghdasarian’s resignation
as parliament speaker.

Balasanian was among the few businessmen who remained in Baghdasarian’s
depleted parliament faction. He repeatedly assured journalists last
year that he will not leave the party, famously declaring that the word
"Orinats Yerkir is written on my forehead."

"Yes, I said that," Balasanian said on Wednesday. "But I also I
worked hard and earned Orinats Yerkir many votes for the previous
parliament. I did everything for the faction."

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress