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IMMUNITY HAS ITS BOUNDARIES
[04:05 pm] 30 January, 2007
«Can we say that when a maniac treats his victim with an ice-cream
just before the murder, this is a step ahead?’ Vazgen Manoukyan,
leader of National Democratic Union, asked Mettew Bryza when the
latter expressed his positive opinion on the amendments to the
Electoral Code. In Vazgen Manoukyan’s words the situation is just the
reverse, we don’t keep abreast the times, just taking the fact that
`the ballot boxes are painted black’ as an illustration.
`The authorities will not only fabricate the election, but they will
attempt to make the whole process unnoticeable. Besides, they urge
people to keep it in silence’, says Vazgen Manoukyan in connection
with the upcoming parliamentary elections. He gets surprised when he
hears NA Speaker Tigran Torosyan and ARF Dashnaktsutyun saying that
the elections must be free and transparent. `What has changed in our
reality?’ wonders Mr. Manoukyan and adds that our high-ranking
officials making such announcements are `either idiots or dregs of
society’.
The leader of the National Democratic Union maintains that the
Armenians have acquired immunity over the election frauds so as not
`to have heart troubles or go mad’. He assumes that the oppositional
forces must ally in one union to combat against the election frauds
with joint measures. But it doesn’t mean that the Opposition will
participate in the forthcoming elections only in one alliance. The
bases of the union will be ideological programs as well as the factor
of human compatibility. For instance, Vazgen Manoukyan is compatible
with Stepan Demirchyan and Samvel Babayan.
Vazgen Manoukyan preferred not to name the incompatible political
figures. Mr. Manoukyan doesn’t see the 2007 elections `the last blow’
but they `will arouse a movement which will later on lead to a normal
state’.
On the whole, Vazgen Manoukyan feels ashamed of the fact that Armenia
resembles a 15th century provincial state whereas the neighboring
Turkey `is a step ahead though it is far from being Europe’. The
reaction of the Turkish society to Hrant Dink’s assassination, when
thousands of people organized a march without any fear, testifies to
this phenomenon.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress
