ACCORDING TO NATIONAL UNITY’S VICE-CHAIRMAN, LEVON TER-PETROSIAN WISHES TO REPLACE "BANDIT STATE" BY "RAT STATE"
Noyan Tapan
Nov 27 2007
YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 27, NOYAN TAPAN. At the enlarged sitting of the
National Unity party’s presidium, it was decided to nominate party
leader Artashes Geghamian’s candidature for the February 19, 2008
presidential elections. As Alexan Karapetian, Gagik Tadevosian,
Gagik Kostandian, members of party’s presidium, and a group of
other figures representing party’s territorial organizations said
at the press conference held after the sitting, when making that
decision they took into consideration the black PR launched against
their leader by first President Levon Ter-Petrosian’s supporters and
media supporting the Armenian National Movement (ANM), as well as
A. Geghamian’s "political experience and rich knowledge."
According to A. Karapetian, newspapers supporting ANM do not behave
correctly lately. Their conduct, in A. Karapetian’s words, is evidence
that "the goal of forces supporting L. Ter-Petrosian is to subject
country to disturbances and to bring their leader to power with
the motto "those not supporting us are against us. "While, as the NU
Vice-Chairman stated, the current authorities came to power just under
Levon Ter-Petrosian. A. Karapetian said that the first President is
surrounded by people, who have changed their parties for many times,
according to him, they are "active participants of rat races." "In
fact, Ter-Petrosian wishes to replace the "bandit state" by a "rat
state," A. Karapetian said.
In response to a journalist’s question of whether A. Geghamian has
decided to run for the elections to spite L. Ter-Petrosian, Geghamian
said: "I feel pity that you have formed such an impression. We equally
reject both the former and the current authorities."
According to A. Karapetian, "Ter-Petrosian has himself raised today’s
bureaucracy and various prominent oligarchs and the responsibility
for political "disasters" – murders and violence against Armenian
citizens, the cold and dark years, large-scale poverty of people
and manifestations of "robbery" – lies on him". In his words,
"Ter-Petrosian and those close to him speak cynically about morality
and betrayal, talk nonsense about venality, whereas their current
actions are classic examples of venality and immorality. If they
consider themselves moral, why are they ruining the path chosen by
the sparapet Vazgen Sargsian? Perhaps we have forgotten that Vazgen
Sargsian was one of the main acting figures (if not the major one)
of the 1998 power shift. The man who realized that each day of
Ter-Petrosian’s being in power poses a great danger and irreversible
losses to the Armenian statehood and the pro-Armenian solution of
the Nagorno-Karabakh problem."