Tension intensified or mitigated?
"The tension during the 2008 presidential elections reached its peak on March 1. Almost a year has passed since then; however, the internal political tension has not been mitigated despite the steps taken by the authorities. I would not like to weigh the results," told "A1+" today member of the "Prosperous Armenia" party Naira Zohrabyan. Zohrabyan considered the revelation and punishment of the culprits as one of the most important issues and said:
"We have no right to talk about mitigating the internal political tension as long as the culprits remain unpunished."
Although the authorities have banned the rally of the Armenian National Congress to be held on March 1, Mrs. Zohrabyan believes that it will take place and is optimistic. "I would like to see people hold the rally peacefully."
With regard to the mitigation of the internal political tension in the country, Zohrabyan attaches importance to the calls of the authorities for dialogue.
"The calls for dialogue remained unanswered due to mutual intolerance. Only through mutual trust is it possible to mitigate the internal political tension."
Unlike Mrs. Zohrabyan, representative of the parliamentary opposition, head of the "Heritage" faction Armen Martirosyan doesn't see any mitigation of the internal political tension.
"We don't see active mass events and people are not able to express their concerns: They have more issues because none of them have been solved. None of the ten murders have been revealed and the political prisoners are still deprived of liberty."
Armen Martirosyan doesn't believe that the authorities have taken steps to mitigate the post-election unrest by making calls for dialogue.
"Dialogue means actions and not calls. If the authorities really wanted dialogue, they had to release the political prisoners who must be the first to establish dialogue and then create a field for competition. But they didn't do that."
Martirosyan says that before making calls for dialogue, the authorities must answer one question: what was the reason for attacking people on the night of February 29?
