DO OLD FRIENDS NOT RESIGN?
Lragir
18:45:37 – 23/02/2008
The resignation of the deputy speaker of the National Assembly Vahan
Hovanisyan may launch a new serious home political process or intensify
the ongoing process. The point is that Vahan Hovanisyan’s decision has
caused a strong reaction among the leadership of the ARF
Dashnaktsutyun. However, we may also say that this reaction had
occurred long before this and has caused Vahan Hovanisyan to resign.
The point is that before the presidential election some part of
Dashnaktsutyun had doubts that Vahan Hovanisyan worked in favor of the
presidential candidate Serge Sargsyan. Moreover, according to
information from the ranks of Dashnaktsutyun, in some areas activists
of Dashnaktsutyun gave election bribes but for the Republican
candidate, not for their candidate. Doubts became deeper when after
failure Vahan Hovanisyan did not make any important pronouncement
regarding the presidential election. It aroused more doubts among the
party ranks about his activities. And perhaps this is the reason why
Vahan Hovanisyan decided to make an assessment of the election and
resign from the post of deputy speaker three days after February 19 to
dispel doubts among his party members about his plot with Serge
Sargsyan.
However, Hovanisyan’s resignation which was expected to dispel doubts
inside the party and ease tension has kindled it even more because now
the problem of a logical continuation of the resignation has occurred,
that is the ministers from Dashnaktsutyun should now resign, especially
that it is in the interests of the ranks of the ARF Dashnaktsutyun, who
heard before the election the statements of their leadership to go all
the way, whereas after the election they were shocked by the silence of
their party leadership after this outrageous election. However, the
demand of the ranks is not in the interests of the party leadership who
have taken a convenient place in government, including ministerial
posts. This situation has caused a heated debate among the ARF
Dashnaktsutyun leadership: to resign or not to resign from ministerial
posts. In fact, it might sound exaggerated but the political future of
the ARF Dashnaktsutyun is at stake if the interests of part of the
leadership prevails over the party ranks.
In addition, this controversy has occurred a long time ago, since the
coalition agreement signed in 2003 when the actions and words of the
ARF Dashnaktsutyun started to contradict, and not only in Armenia but
also in the political life of Karabakh, when the opposition ARF
Dashnaktsutyun joined the `common candidate’ plot after it had been
crushed in the parliamentary election in Karabakh. Perhaps the ARF
Dashnaktsutyun has a good opportunity to overcome internal
controversies and misunderstanding, if certainly it goes for
ideological consistency rather than political conformism.