Pan-Armenian National Movement Youth Wing Elects New Leaders

The 12th conference of the Pan-Armenian National Movement (HHSh) Youth Union began at 11 am in Yerevan yesterday. During the all-day affair, Babken Urutyan was elected president, Ruben Aghababyan was elected vice-president and Lilit Melkonyan was elected secretary. Urutyan, 30, is political prisoner Harutyun Urutyan’s son, who is also the head of the Armenian National Congress (HAK) branch in Maralik, as well as the representative of the HHSh in Maralik.

Note that Urutyan replaces Karen Karapetyan, who submitted his resignation 10 days ago. The reason for his resignation, according to media reports, is that he was not sent to Lebanon, where the General Assembly of the International Federation of Liberal Youth (IFLRY) took place from Nov. 19–21; however, HHSh party leader Aram Manukyan’s son and daughter were sent. Along with Karapetyan, 26 HHSh Youth Union members also left the organization. Manukyan had confirmed this news with journalists, however, saying that the 26 youth left the youth wing but not the political party as a whole. Note that Karen Karapetyan was not present during yesterday’s meeting. 

During his opening speech at yesterday’s meeting, Manukyan encouraged youth not to get “too haughty or arrogant” as this caused losses to the party. Further, he spoke on his future steps, which, according to him, have to be solved together with the HHSh youth generation. 

“We are the generation of ’88, you are the generation of 2008. Our current situation forced two political generations to extend a hand to each other; we have not yet finished, you have just begun… I am very happy that your generation and our generation together have a serious political problem to resolve in Armenia, that is the strengthening of the state, that is restoring constitutional order, that is to have a prosperous, liberal, free country. I appeal to you as a senior friend, to do this work together with HAK, to gather around HAK, to have good working, practical, friendly relations with all of HAK’s political parties. We are stronger this way,” he said.