by Susanna Petrosyan, Yerevan. Exclusively for VK
The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) Dashnaktsutyun has held its traditional closed-door meeting in the Lori Region of Armenian. Delegates from Nagorno-Karabakh, Georgia, Iran, France, Lebanon and the US arrived to discuss Armenia’s internal problems. They decided that the current authorities had failed in economic policy: emigration, unemployment, poverty and foreign debt had increased. This may become a disaster for the country.
The supreme authorities of the ARF had two more members appointed, making a total of 11 at the assembly. Dashnaks say that it is a result of serious and organized work for the upcoming elections to local autonomies, the Yerevan Council of Elders and the upcoming presidential polls of February 2013. The party has not passed a final decision on the format of the presidential polls. It will be made at a special session after discussions with other opposition forces.
The party is more interested in presenting its own candidate for the presidential polls, because this is the only way to realize the party’s programs. According to the party’s authorities, taking part in the presidential polls as an independent force is not a goal in itself, there may be a single opposition candidate. Dashnaks believe that consent on topical issues should be the primary objective, only then should candidates of separate forces be considered. A candidate’s personality is of secondary importance. The most significant part is for the candidate to announce a ban on the current presidential system that strengthens political, economic and other monopolies and switch to a parliamentary system allowing decentralization of power and implementation of modern technologies of checks and balances. The second idea is to strengthen levers that control and counterbalance the government.
The ARF assembly set a transition towards a more radical attitude. Dashnaks demand a switch of government and express readiness to achieve this goal as fast as possible.
Dashnaktsutyun has never put forward such harsh demands since 1998. The biggest demands it had during the previous parliament were the resignation of the foreign minister and the prime minister. Such a toughening of its position could have been provoked by the negative socio-economic situation in the country, which inspires no diversity of colours on the internal political field. The only two colours fixed are black and white.
In this situation, steps towards a harsher course of policy play a positive role in the political prospects of the ARF. This is a good moment to consider the results of the latest parliamentary polls of this political force. Despite the fact that the ARF had 16 seats at the parliament of the previous calling and has only 5 seats today, the parliamentary polls of May 6 improved its rating. The ARF left the ruling coalition two years ago, because it was recognized as an opposition party by society. The ARF’s position on some of the key internal and foreign political issues and economic affairs brought the party an image of a true opposition faction in the eyes of Armenian society, which is a much greater achievement than having 11 additional parliamentary seats.
Regarding the format of the ARF’s role in the presidential polls, the party has been presenting its own candidates for the last 22 years, such as in 1991 and 2008 (Sos Sargsyan and Vagan Oganesyan respectively), and supporting other candidates. For example, former President Robert Kocharyan was twice a candidate of the ARF in 1998 and 2003. The ARF supported a single opposition candidate in 1996, the chairman of the National Democratic Union Party, Vazgen Manukyan.
Some analysts believe that the ARF will introduce its own candidate for the presidential polls of 2013, because there is no candidate in the political arena to suit the demands of the ARF. But the ARF will no doubt support an opposition candidate in the second round of voting. So far, the ARF is its taking time, because processes of preparations for the presidential polls will obviously start in the summer and forecasts about the nature of these processes would be too hasty. A clearer image of the internal political processes should only be expected in autumn.
