IS ARF DASHNAKTSUTYUN READY TO “DIVORCE?”
Support A1+!If the Republicans decide to repeal the agreement on collaboration with the coalition, the ARF Dashnaktsutyun is ready. “We accept all the three options, to recall our minister, to send ministers on holiday at the pre-election period and finally, the ARF Dashnaktsutyun is ready to work in the same way,” ARF Dashnaktsutyun Supreme Body member Armen Rustamyan said in response to the Republican’s astonishment at the fact that the ARF Dashnaktsutyun will have its presidential nominee.
Rustamyan condemned the general belief that everything is predetermined, “This is a means to distort the political sphere, to stir up passiveness and lead to stagnation.”
Armen Rustamyan also explained the party’s decision to name two candidates. By nominating Armen Rustamyan and Vahan Hovanisyan to the presidential election Dashnaktsutyun practiced the experience of developed political systems. “If we are considering a party’s commitment to democracy, the party should first display democracy inside it. It is one of the simplest and most important expressions of democracy,” Armen Rustamyan says.
The ARF Dashnaktsutyun member gave a positive answer to the question whether it means that Armen Rustamyan and Vahan Hovanisyan will be competing to win over the ranks of the party. “It is going to be an open and transparent competition. We will have meetings with our ranks in the regions, invite supporters, present our approaches and our points of views. The logic of Dashnaktsutyun is: no matter who is selected, people will eventually support Dashnaktsutyun,” Armen Rustamyan says.
According to Rustamyan, the difference is that of persons. “I may put the stresses in my way, and Vahan in his way. We share ideas, nevertheless there is difference in style.”
In reply to the question, why Serge Sargsyan does not support the ARD Dashnaktsutyun, Rustamyan said, “I think it inadmissible that the president and the parliament majority should present the same political force as the mechanism of checks and balances does not work in that case.” Armen Rustamyan says being part of the coalition or collaborating with the coalition does not mean you have no right to put up a presidential candidate. “First, we are not against Serge Sargsyan. We are not guided by the idea of being against someone. We are not looking for enemies in this country. On the contrary, we want to bring everyone together for the sake of something. They may tell us that our visions are not for the sake of something but against something, there are no such problems, you gave the wrong evaluation of the problems. They’re welcome, let us have a debate, argue about the subject, the problems instead of humiliating and defaming one another,” Armen Rustamyan says. He says the ARF Dashnaktsutyun is ready for a political, ideological debate.
What will the ARF Dashnaktsutyun do in case Serge Sargsyan decides to retrieve the Dro or Vahan Hovanisyan +30 case to make the party more obedient?
“They can recall. We also have a lot to recall. Let them recall. We have openly presented our biography, our past to people, and everyone knows everything,” Armen Rustamyan said coldly. “People can see and understand everything.”
Ideological struggle only with Levon Ter-Petrosyan
Armen Rustamyan has a normal attitude toward Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s nomination to the presidential election. “In addition, it will be better if he is nominated,” Armen Rustamyan says.
According to him, the nomination of the former president will be helpful to the presidential election in terms of politics and ideology. “I know that when we were opposition, there were two ideologies in the Armenian reality: one was nationalistic, the other was cosmopolitan, internationalist,” Armen Rustamyan says, stressing that if Levon Ter-Petrosyan runs in the race, the race will have much more ideology.
