REAL ALTERNATIVE WITH SERIOUS PROGRAMS
Gevorg Haroutyunyan
Hayots Ashkhar Daily
Published on May 22, 2008
Armenia
The Armenian Revolutionary Federation-Dashnaktsoutyun started its
30th General Assembly yesterday afternoon
The third assembly, convened in Armenia after the country’s regaining
independence, is attended by deputies and responsible activists
representing the party in 30 countries of the world.
The official opening of the 30th General Assembly took place in the
conference hall of the Government. Among the invitees were Prime
Minister Tigran Sargsyan, Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandyan, Vice
Chair of the Republican Party Galoust Sahakyan, leader of "Prosperous
Armenia" party Gagik Tsaroukyan, Vice Chair of "Rule of Law" party
Heghine Bisharyan, NDU leader Vazgen Manoukyan, Head of the National
Democratic Party Shavarsh Kochayan, Secretary of the Political Council
of "Heritage" party Vardan Khachatryan, ex-Foreign Minister Vardan
Oskanyan, well-known American-Armenian historian Richard Hovhannisyan
and many others.
The chief speaker was HRANT MARGARYAN, representative of the ARFD
bureau. In his opinion, Dashnaktsoutyun has been an alternative both to
the opposition and the authorities during the past 10 years. "Although
in 1998-2008 we collaborated with the authorities and managed, to a
certain extent, have our participation in the progress as well as the
extremely important process developing the national policy, we also
expressed our disagreements. We didn’t agree to the economic policy,
we were dissatisfied with the fact that the country didn’t organize
a coordinated struggle against corruption; we considered the illegal
demeanor of the privileged group and criminal and half-criminal
elements intolerable. We considered that all this moved the country
towards autocracy or instability.
By participating in the presidential race, we were putting an end to
our previous cooperation with the authorities and somehow, creating a
possibility of a new beginning for us. We didn’t have the right to act
as timeservers at the last moment, by quitting our former partners."
In the estimation of Hrant Margaryan, the last four presidential
elections were held in an extremely tense atmosphere. There were bloody
clashes twice – in 1998 and in 2008. Is it by mere accident that
in both cases the chief player and participant was the same person,
acting as a representative of the authorities in he former case and
as a pro-opposition figure in the latter?
"After ten years of silence, there appeared a person on the political
arena whom society remembers with hatred. The policy course he pursued
in our country suffered a crushing defeat. Realizing this perfectly
well, the former leader returned to the Armenian Pan-National Movement,
his organization, thus hiding his supporters, all his programs and,
after all, his personality behind the dissatisfaction existing in
the country. It turned out that leading a program-based ideological
struggle was not his objective," the representative of the ARFD
bureau mentioned.