‘We’ll Say with Whom and How’: Dashnaktsutyun Promises Unity in Armenia’s Opposition

There are both objective and subjective circumstances that prevent the opposition from uniting, said Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun, or ARF-D) parliamentary faction leader Vahan Hovhannisyan at today’s discussion in the Civilitas Foundation series “100 Hundred Questions, 100 Hundred Answers.”

“The Armenian National Congress has more things in common with the current authorities: regardless of the curses, they say whatever [they want]. But there are political arenas where being close to them is strikingly noticed; for example, in the Karabakh question, in the question of Armenian-Turkish relations. They have a much greater arena for cooperation here than with, say, Dashnaktsutyun, New Times, the Heritage Party, with these parties who had united in the ‘No’ movement,” he said.

The MP then went on to list what he considered the subjective factors.

“To unite for what? To reach what aim? If a political party that will come to power and do that which today’s authorities do, as this political force [i.e. HAK] has no other experience? Or should we restructure the country’s entire government order?” he said, implying that HAK, were it to come to power, would act just as the current Armenian government does.

Hovhannisyan said if his party was approached by such a proposal, they wouldn’t refuse.

“But today, from what we understand, a proposal for unity is being made under one political framework [i.e. HAK], and those who don’t fit within this scheme, they ruthlessly curse [at them],” he said.

“Unity will happen, of course, but we’ll say, with whom and how; it won’t happen under [another’s] command,” he concluded.