Epress.am News from Armenia
The Armenian National Congress’ maximum plan for the upcoming parliamentary election is to ensure a parliamentary majority, said Armenian National Congress (HAK) senior representative Levon Zurabyan (pictured) on a talk show on Kentron TV on Monday evening.
“If, say, we are unable to secure the majority in parliament, we also have a minimum plan, which is that we have to be able in the first place to smash the Republican Party’s monopoly,” he said.
If a situation is created whereby the Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) doesn’t hold the majority of seats in the National Assembly, Zurabyan continued, that in itself is already a victory.
Program host Petros Ghazaryan (who himself was set to run in the parliamentary election but changed his mind later) asked the opposition candidate whether HAK would reject its parliamentary seats if the HHK, nevertheless, secures another parliamentary majority.
“I think that we have to address this issue in the future and not now respond to it in advance. The question that you’re asking hasn’t been discussed by the [Armenian National] Congress. If you want to know my personal opinion, well let me say, this is not Yerevan’s city council elections; this is a serious national platform, which in any case has to be used to bring our voice to the people. Personally, I believe that no matter what happens we have to go and fight in parliament, while maintaining the pressure on the street,” he said, adding that the opposition bloc’s grassroots struggle will complement its work in parliament.
In Zurabyan’s opinion, the situation in parliament will change after the election as currently there are small groups of opposition lawmakers in parliament, but who don’t have “strong support from the street” as HAK does.
“For this reason, they couldn’t do anything [i.e. effect change]. If the people are standing behind the lawmakers, that completely changes the situation,” he said.