‘You Don’t Step in Same River Twice’: Arzumanyan Doesn’t Picture Cooperation with HAK at This Time

The Free Democrats party will participate in the elections as an ideological bloc and will run on a purely ideological basis, said Free Democrats member and Armenia’s former foreign minister Alexander Arzumanyan at a press conference in Yerevan today.

According to him, they have “partnership relations” with Heritage Party, which shares their same ideology.

“We will fight together with the Heritage Party not to allow electoral fraud, to establish joint groups of trusted individuals, and in several issues. We are not ruling out the possibility of being on a joint party list with the Heritage Party — we see no problems. Discussions are currently underway, and everything will be clear in the coming week,” he said.

According to him, the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) views these elections as a preamble to next year’s presidential election. “This is a key test, and HHK will do everything possible to assume office again.”

As for cooperating with the Armenian National Congress (HAK), in which Arzumanyan was previously a member, the former foreign minister said “you don’t step in the same river twice.”

“At this time, I don’t see areas where we can cooperate with HAK, but an alliance to rule out [electoral] fraud with either HAK or ARF-D [Armenian Revolutionary Federation, Dashnaktsutyun] or the Heritage Party is not excluded,” he said.