SERGE SARGSYAN AND ROBERT KOCHARYAN HAVEN’T SOLVED THE UNDERLYING ISSUE, AND GALUST IS NOT A BAD GUY

Lragir, Armenia
Aug 16 2007

The president and the prime minister of Armenia, according to the
leader of the Democratic Way Party Manuk Gasparyan, have not solved the
underlying problem of the future of the government. Manuk Gasparyan
said on August 16 at the Friday club he doubts that the government
will name Serge Sargsyan president as long as Robert Kocharyan keeps
this question up in the air.

"The conference of the Republican Party was cancelled due to Robert
Kocharyan because there are issues which have to be settled with
Serge Sargsyan. What will Robert Kocharyan be doing after the
election? Serge Sargsyan has not answered the question whether
Robert Kocharyan will be prime minister or not? Now he is reluctant
to answer. It will be bad if he fails to answer because no candidate
might be named," Manuk Gasparyan says for Serge Sargsyan. In this case,
perhaps in his subjective opinion, Vardan Oskanyan or the head of the
president administration Armen Gevorgyan may be named president. Manuk
Gasparyan thinks so. However, he also thinks, for example, that the
ARF Dashnaktsutyun which stated to name president may fail to and
support Serge Sargsyan with some reservations.

"I am sure 90 percent that the ARF Dashnaktsutyun will name no
president. They only want to boost their importance in the government,
to vote for Serge Sargsyan. As far as I can see, the General Meeting of
the ARF Dashnaktsutyun will eventually endorse Serge Sargsyan with some
reservations. If Robert Kocharyan okays, of course. Today much depends
on Robert Kocharyan," Manuk Gasparyan says. But he also says that power
is gradually moving from Robert Kocharyan to Serge Sargsyan, and the
officials and bootlicking oligarchs who pledged allegiance to him and
had served Levon Ter-Petrosyan earlier are now going to Serge Sargsyan.

However, Manuk Gasparyan doubts this as well. He says there is
no certainty in the government camp regarding the government’s
candidate. In this connection he advises Galust Sahakyan to apologize
to the opposition who compares the meeting of the leaders with a
meeting of mice who want to find a way of ridding of the cat. Manuk
Gasparyan says if Sahakyan compares the opposition with mice, he
should compare the government with rats because the rats are more
aggressive. "If he compares the opposition with mice, he should
consider their meetings and their candidate as a gathering of rats,
frauds, cheaters, bootlickers," Manuk Gasparyan says. But he also says
Galust Sahakyan is not a bad guy and his bad reputation is because
in the previous years he was responsible for the wrongdoing of the
government, but now Galust is "out".