SARKISIAN BLASTS TER-PETROSIAN AS ELECTION SHOWDOWN LOOMS
By Astghik Bedevian and Karine Kalantarian
Radio Liberty, Czech Republic
Nov 12 2007
Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian attacked and warned former President
Levon Ter-Petrosian against attempting to change Armenia’s existing
political system over the weekend as he was formally confirmed as
the presidential candidate of the ruling Republican Party (HHK).
The HHK leadership unanimously backed his candidacy in the upcoming
presidential election at a congress held in Yerevan on Saturday.
Sarkisian was also elected HHK chairman, completing his takeover of a
party which controls most government bodies in the country and claims
to have 135,000 members.
With Sarkisian long seen as President Robert Kocharian’s preferred
successor, the four-hour congress was expected to be a mere
formality. As was the case during the previous HHK gatherings, there
were no discussions on key issues facing Armenia and the party’s
electoral strategy and tactics. The only visible novelty this time
around was the presence of shapely fashion models who helped 650
or so delegates find their seats in a sports arena in Yerevan that
served as the congress venue.
Sarkisian spent half of his 30-minute acceptance speech responding
to Ter-Petrosian’s harsh criticism of the current Armenian leadership.
It was a clear sign that he considers the enigmatic ex-president to
be his main election challenger.
"They want to break up the state," the influential premier said of
Ter-Petrosian and his opposition loyalists. "They won’t succeed. Any
[such] attempt will be thwarted."
Breaking his nearly decade-long silence, Ter-Petrosian has accused
Kocharian and Sarkisian of turning Armenia into a "gangster state"
where government corruption and suppression of dissent are the norm.
He has urged Armenians to help him bring down the ruling "criminal
regime" in the election scheduled for February 19.
Kocharian was quick to react to his predecessor’s allegations late
last month, accusing him of mismanaging the Armenian economy during
his rule. Sarkisian, who had until now avoided publicly attacking
Ter-Petrosian, echoed Kocharian’s assessment of the ex-president’s
dramatic comeback.
"It is pathetic that Levon Ter-Petrosian has lost a sense of reality
to such an extent that he … advises President Robert Kocharian
and myself to leave the political arena," said Sarkisian. "To avoid
staying in his debt, let me give him another advice. He had better
repent and apologize to the Armenian people for, to put it mildly,
mistakes committed by him."
"I am sure he won’t do that because he is filled with spite and has
irreversibly fallen behind the course of life," he added.
Sarkisian apparently referred to the first years of Armenia’s
independence marked by an economic slump, mass unemployment and
severe electricity shortages. Ter-Petrosian and his loyalists say
much of the resulting enormous hardship was the result of the wars in
Nagorno-Karabakh and Georgia that all but cut off Armenia from the
outside world. Kocharian insisted, however, that the Ter-Petrosian
administration simply "ruined" the economy.
Sarkisian, who had help key government positions in Yerevan during
most of Ter-Petrosian’s 1991-1998 presidency, would not say if he
thinks he too bears responsibility for the alleged misrule. His
comments were dismissed on Monday by Ararat Zurabian, the nominal
head of the former ruling Armenian Pan-National Movement (HHSh),
one of the several opposition parties aligned with Ter-Petrosian.
Speaking to RFE/RL, Zurabian stressed that neither Kocharian, nor
Sarkisian have directly commented on concrete accusations leveled
against them by Ter-Petrosian. The HHSh chairman suggested that
they try to disprove those accusations in a live televised debate
with Ter-Petrosian.
Addressing a big rally in Yerevan on October 26, Ter-Petrosian
specifically accused Kocharian, Sarkisian and their close associates of
pocketing billions of dollars in taxes and informal payments allegedly
extorted from local businesspeople.
In his Saturday speech, Sarkisian acknowledged that bribery, nepotism
and other corrupt practices are widespread in Armenia. He indicated
that if elected president, he will make sure that businessmen and
other wealthy individuals close to the government do not get away
with enriching themselves by illegal means.
"Tax evasion and corruption must be regarded as a disgraceful and
condemnable phenomenon," said Sarkisian. "We must not take into
account family ties and friendship and must not regard as friends and
supporters those people who will avoid paying taxes and tolerate this
vicious phenomenon."
The Armenian premier himself has long been accused by his opponents
of sponsoring government-connected entrepreneurs who enjoy de facto
monopoly on lucrative forms of economic activity. Most of the so-called
"oligarchs" are now affiliated with the HHK.