SERZH SARKISIAN ELECTED CHAIRMAN OF REPUBLICAN PARTY AND NOMINATED PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE

ARMENPRESS
Nov 12, 2007

YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 12, ARMENPRESS: Some 650 delegates of a congress
of the governing Republican Party elected Saturday prime minister
Serzh Sarkisian as chairman of the party. Serzh Sarkisian said it
was a great responsibility to be chairman of a party whose previous
leaders were its founder Ashot Navasardian and former prime ministers
Vazgen Sarkisian and Andranik Margarian, who contributed immensely
to building an independent country.

Serzh Sarkisian said he will do his best to increase the role of the
party in all areas of Armenian life.

Parliament chairman Tigran Torosian, Mushegh Lalayan, Razmik Zohrabian
and Galust Sahakian were elected deputy party chairmen.

The congress also increased the number of the party’s governing board
from 72 to 100 and set up also a 13-member executive body.

The 11-th congress of the party nominated Serzh Sarkisian as a
presidential candidate of the party for the next year’s election.

Thanking the delegates of the congress Serzh Sarkisian said
presidential election is an opportunity to assume the entire
responsibility for the country for the next five years, an opportunity
for a reconciled work of the legislative and executive branches
of power and an opportunity of avoiding meaningless political
confrontation.

He said this gives a good chance for materialization of a very
ambitious development plan designed by the government.

In his address to the congress Serzh Sarkisian focused on what the
government has done so far and shared also his party’s vision of
Armenia in five years.

In a reference to domestic policies he said over the last 15 difficult
years ‘we have succeeded in building a sovereign state based on
democratic principles."

He also referred to foreign policy challenges saying Armenia will
never agree to Turkey’s and Azerbaijan’s demands and will remain
committed to unconditional improvement of ties with Turkey.

In a reference to Nagorno-Karabakh conflict he said Armenia will press
for the international recognition of its right to self-determination
and will help crate soil for it.

He also said the government has enough political will to hold free
and just presidential election scheduled for November 19.