Dashnaktsutyun Wants to See Regime Change Through Civilized Means

Being in the opposition, participating in the elections within these conditions of a defective electoral system will be an extremely difficult task, said Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun, ARF-D) Supreme Council member Armen Rustamyan at a press conference today. 

According to him, Dashnaktsutyun does everything possible so that the “flawed manifestations” decrease. 

“But we’re not that naive. I don’t think it’s possible to rule out the phenomena in the National Assembly elections that we have seen during the last elections,” he said.

Assessing the possibilities of political parties in the 2011 elections, Rustamyan said, “when you add all the expected voices before the elections, you reach 1000%.”

“I also hear, the coalition [that is, the ruling Republican Party of Armenia, Prosperous Armenia and Rule of Law] says, we have 80 percent; let the opposition divide the [remaining] 20 percent among itself.” Such statements Rustamyan considers to be contempt towards the people. 

“If we have decided beforehand who is going to get how many votes, that means we are simply excluding our people as a factor in these elections,” he said. 

He cited as an example other countries where governments change though frequent elections. 

“But in Armenia, unfortunately, we don’t have such a fact. And the fundamental issue, that we have placed as opposition, [is] to implement a regime change with the aim of forming new quality governments and that to happen through electoral processes appropriate for normal, civilized countries,” concluded Rustamyan.