VAZGEN MANUKYAN IS PREPARING FOR PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS

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Vazgen Manukyan, the leader of the National Democratic Union (NDU), will put forward his candidature for the 2008 presidential elections, though he hasn't run in the parliament elections.

The NDU leader states that there is no need to be disappointed with people: people were active; simply about 25 percent of votes were dissipated because the opposition did not come together. It is natural that “the more people are fed up with the government, the more they accuse the opposition. In fact, the opposition, which knew they would not win the election, cheated people.”

In this connection Vazgen Manukyan has questions. “Year by year vote tampering becomes more and more invisible for an observer. This is the culmination. A regular army is needed against a regular army. They say election bribes were given out of a car. Where is the opposition? Why didn’t they break the car and take the person to the court of law. Why didn’t the citizens scare and beat the person giving out bribes? It is not clear to me. It is not possible in any country to present intelligent programs and come to power.”

The NDU leader suggests accepting that the Republican Party has 200 thousand voters, which is not salvation or comfort for the Republican Party. “There are 2 million 200 thousand voters in Armenia and only 200 thousand voted for the Republican Party. The other 2 million do not accept this political party, most of them even hate Republicans. It appears that with only 200 thousand votes they can oppose to 2 million and monopolize power in the country. It is real disgrace and cannot last long,” stated Vazgen Manukyan in a news conference on May 16. According to him, the 450 thousand votes that the Republican Party got were the result of multiple voting and violence.

The parliamentary elections will lead to a positive thing; the opposition will undergo changes, Vazgen Manukyan said. If you want to change the government, you need an organized opposition, he stated. In this case, everything will be easier because “the Republican Party went too far, took everything in its hands and hopefully the parties which are considered pro-government will act as opposition.” The NDU offers a proposal to the parties which were elected to the RoA Parliament: Orinats Yerkir, Dashnaktsutyun, Prosperous Armenia and Heritage must come together against the Republicans and go all the way to struggle