OLD RIVAL DISMAYED BY UNREPENTANT TER-PETROSIAN
By Karine Kalantarian and Astghik Bedevian
Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
Sept 25 2007
Opposition leader Vazgen Manukian expressed on Tuesday dismay at
Levon Ter-Petrosian’s first public speech in a decade, saying that
the former president failed to admit his responsibility for serious
political and economic problems facing Armenia today.
Addressing hundreds of supporters on Friday, Ter-Petrosian referred
to the Armenian government as an "institutionalized mafia-style regime
which has plunged us into the ranks of third world counties."
He accused the administration of President Robert Kocharian of
rigging elections, violating laws, engaging in corrupt practices and
restricting civil liberties.
"To be honest, I am disappointed because Levon Ter-Petrosian faced
the same accusations, made in stronger or softer terms, during his
presidency," Manukian told RFE/RL. "He should have structured his
speech in a different way. He should have shown the roots [of those
problems,] he should have given explanations."
"It can be inferred [from his speech] that what is wrong today was
right in the past," he said. "It turned out that nothing has changed in
[Ter-Petrosian’s] team in ten years."
Ter-Petrosian critics believe in particular that Armenia’s culture of
electoral fraud emerged during his eight-year rule. They specifically
point to the conduct of the disputed September 1996 presidential
election criticized as deeply flawed by Western observers.
Ter-Petrosian sent tanks to the streets of Yerevan to quell violent
opposition protests against the official vote results which showed
him narrowly defeating Manukian, the then main opposition candidate.
Manukian still claims to be the rightful winner of the vote.
The bitter standoff was the culmination of mutual antipathy that
Ter-Petrosian and Manukian developed during the first years of
Armenia’s independence. The two former scholars became the top leaders
of the 1988 movement for Armenia’s unification with Nagorno-Karabakh
before jointly heading the country’s first post-Communist government
in 1990.
Manukian, who is also highly critical of Kocharian, may have extended
an olive branch to Ter-Petrosian early this year when he agreed in
principle to make his National Democratic Union (AZhM) part of an
opposition electoral alliance comprising the former ruling Armenian
Pan-National Movement (HHSH). Talks over the formation of such a bloc
collapsed for reasons unrelated to the past rivalry between the AZhM
and the HHSh.
Manukian, who intends to contest next year’s presidential election,
claimed that Ter-Petrosian’s possible participation in the vote would
make it easier for the authorities to legitimize a planned transfer
of power from Kocharian to Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian.
Ter-Petrosian loyalists make similar claims about Manukian, saying
that his presidential run would further split the opposition vote
and thereby benefit Sarkisian.
Vahagn Khachatrian, a Ter-Petrosian associate who leads the opposition
Aylentrank (Alternative) movement, said on Tuesday that the former
president will act with a "totally new team" if he decides to join
the presidential race. He said that team will include not only the
HHSh, Aylentrank and the radical opposition Hanrapetutyun (Republic)
party but also the People’s Party of Stepan Demirchian, Kocharian’s
main challenger in the last presidential election.
Ter-Petrosian said on Friday that he has still not decided whether
to run for president. He argued that pervasive government control of
electronic media would make it very hard for him to get his message
across.
Victor Dallakian, a veteran opposition parliamentarian, predicted
on Tuesday that the 62-year-old ex-president will after all enter
the fray. "Common sense suggests that after such tough evaluations
of the situation in the country the first president of the republic
should run," he told reporters.