Achievements and Biggest Failure of 2011, According to Opposition Representative

For the Armenian National Congress, 2011 was the most productive and busiest year, said Levon Zurabyan, coordinator of the opposition bloc’s day to day affairs, summing up the year in politics at a press conference in Yerevan today. Zurabyan mentioned that the Armenian National Congress (HAK) held 22 national public events this year.

“This wasn’t just meaningless activity; I think that we’ve obtained quite serious results. The right to free assembly can be considered to be completely restored. In Armenia, Liberty Square is now open for political activities — for not only the Armenian National Congress, but also all political forces. From now on, unlawful prohibitions are removed for all types of public events. This is an important achievement, which was acquired under conditions of fierce resistance from the authorities,” he said.

Zurabyan considered a more important achievement that HAK was able to oblige the authorities to release all political prisoners without conditions.

The opposition representative also emphasized that the “Movement,” within the scope of talks with Armenia’s governing authorities, publicly stated their grounds for the “illegitimacy” of Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan and parliament, which, according to Zurabyan, became an important occasion.

In his opinion, also significant was “the declaration on legal and political grounds for dethroning Serzh Sargsyan approved by the people at the rally.”

“Now there remains one important right, which till now we have been unable to restore — that is the right to choose one’s own government. The dialogue that took place was aimed specifically toward this and that which was to have become the greatest achievement of 2011 — which would’ve been an achievement for both the opposition and the authorities, for the state and, in the first place, our people and the public — became the greatest failure,” Zurabyan said, adding that it is the ruling authorities who are responsible for this failure because they have to understand that there can’t be dialogue without concessions.