THE VICTORY WILL BELONG TO PEOPLE, LEVON TER-PETROSYAN SAID AT THE LPA FOUNDING CONGRESS
by Margarit Yesayan
Aravot
Aug 19 2008
Armenia
A new old political party – the Liberal Party of Armenia – was born
on Saturday [17 August], whose core, according to the founders,
consists of the Liberal Progressive Party of Armenia. Hovhannes
Hovhannisyan was elected the party’s president. As was expected,
the congress was turned into a mini-rally: the slogan "Struggle,
struggle until the end" was heard after each speech.
[Passage omitted: The leaders of the opposition People’s Party of
Armenia, the Republic party, the Armenian Pan-National Movement and
the Liberty party welcomed the foundation of the new party and praised
it in their speeches]
When the congress was coming to its end at about an hour-and-a-half
after its start, when Hovhannisyan was delivering his closing speech,
the first president, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, entered the hall slowly. The
hall exploded in applause, people forgot immediately that they were
at the congress of a different party, and welcomed the first president
as an icon. The first president did not resist, he greeted the people
in the hall, shook Hovhannisyan’s hand and took a seat.
He said in his speech: "Let me express my unexpected admiration that
a new party can be established in such an environment. It looked
like that the era of parties is coming to an end in Armenia, and
let’s admit that people are somehow disappointed in the party system,
people don’t realize that this is not the fault of the party system
but that of the government. If the government were healthy, it would
have been built on the constitutional order, and the parties would
have been healthier than the government. The government’s flaws are
echoed in parties. And we have to accept this as a fact."