Armenia: Dirty or Clean? Ruling and Opposition MPs Debate the State of Affairs

Armenia: Dirty or Clean? Ruling and Opposition MPs Debate the State of Affairs

Heritage Party MP Armen Martirosyan told journalists in Yerevan today that he doesn’t recall there ever being such a dirty situation in Armenia as there is today.

“Since 1988, it can be said, I’ve been in all the political processes. In 88, while still of school age, I organized so-called ‘class strikes’ at our school; we would come to Opera square; it’s not like I was ever far from political developments as a citizen, but I don’t ever remember there ever being such a situation. Despite everything, when the wet with the dry and the black with the white are completely mixed, and all this, in the form of a mud ball, is constantly thrown at [the] Heritage [Party], on [Heritage Party leader] Raffi Hovannisian, on those who certainly want to be independent, definitely want the country to be a system truly governed by democracy and not by monopolies: a monopoly as in the economic sector so in the political sector. This is a great luxury for small Armenia,” he said.

Further, Martirosyan said Armenia has to be rich in alternatives.

“As for assessing the current situation, we have a wonderful president, a wonderful government, wonderful authorities; we just have a very ungrateful nation. The authorities do such great work, create such a great opportunity for the people, they give golden mountains, but our citizens, you don’t know why, don’t accept that; they don’t understand and instead of accepting these gifts from the authorities, they emigrate and constantly complain,” said the Heritage Party representative rather sarcastically.

Another participant in today’s press conference, Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) MP Manvel Badeyan retorted, “There hasn’t been a cleaner situation.”

“It’s easy to make obvious statements. To be upset that three political parties don’t want the fourth to get into the National Assembly and to abandon parliamentary hall — that’s laughable. [It’s] something different [altogether], when it becomes clear after assessments that, of course, Heritage [Party] has no chance whatsoever to be represented in the next National Assembly and begins from today such impetuous actions, extreme actions up until a hunger strike, so they make their activities more noticeable,” he said.

The ruling party representative noted that Raffi Hovannisian’s demands are incomprehensible to him. Martirosyan then presented the first demand: the holding of early and free elections. Badeyan, in response, said “let it be free,” but he is against snap elections and doesn’t understand why there have to be early elections anyway.

As a reason, Martirosyan noted that the country is in a state of emergency, while Badeyan retorted with “our country is constantly in a state of emergency, beginning from ’88.”