NOT ALL CANDIDATES FOR PRESIDENCY ARE GUIDED BY PRINCIPLE OF PRESERVATION OF STATEHOOD, ARAM HAROUTIUNIAN SAYS
Noyan Tapan
Dec 11 2007
YEREVAN, DECEMBER 11, NOYAN TAPAN. Aram Haroutiunian, the Chairman
of the National Consent party, who is a candidate for presidency,
considers that though the official election campaign has not been
launched yet, "the preelection marathon resembles a fight without
rules." Such a situation, in his words, does not contribute to holding
of democratic elections, as "if the game has no rules, the audience
wishes to see blood without fail."
A. Haroutiunian stated at the December 12 press conference that not all
candidates for presidency are guided by the principle of preservation
of the statehood, and some of them are ready for everything to come
to power. He said that since 1991 up to present he has been the
opponent of first RA President Levon Ter-Petrosian, in particular,
in the issue of settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. And
in response to the question of in what issue he does not agree with
the other main candidate, RA Prime Minister and RPA Chairman Serge
Sargsian, A. Haroutiunian stated: "I am against his team."
Explaining what hopes he has this time, after receiving few votes in
the previous presidential elections, A. Haroutiunian said that as a
result of elections’ falsification, last time the votes received by
him were "brotherly distributed among pro-governmental and opposition
forces."
According to him, in the 2003 parliamentary elections the National
Consent party received as much votes as the Armenian National Movement,
and ANM can nominate L. Ter-Petrosian’s candidature "in the disguised
way," while the National Consent party, "which is not discredited and
has no faults, has an absolute moral right" to nominate its candidate.
By the way, A. Haroutiunian said that he had managed to get the sum
of pledge necessary for his candidature’s registration with great
difficulty.
He said that no oligarch has financed the National Consent party and
the party has received the necessary sum from ordinary citizens."