HAK condemns Armenian president’s speech

Armenian National Congress (HAK) Party has issued a statement, in which it condemned the speech that Armenian President, Chairman of the Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) Serzh Sargsyan made against Gagik Tsarukyan, the leader of Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK).

“At the sitting of HHK’s political council on February 12 Serzh Sargsyan made a long speech whose content creates a new situation in Armenia’s internal political life.

The leader of Prosperous Armenia Party Gagik Tsarukyan was the only subject of that speech. Accusing him of a thousand crimes, Serzh Sargsyan demands – in fact, by means of threats - that Tsarukyan should quit politics and engage only in business.   This demand in itself is a flagrant violation of the Constitution of Armenia. Each citizen has the right to engage in politics and there are no provisions or authorized bodies that restrict or forbid him/her to do it. So Gagik Tsarukyan has as much right to engage in politics as Serzh Sargsyan has. 

The following ‘accusations’ of Serzh Sargsyan form the basis of the dilemma facing Gagik Tsarukyan:\

1. Unverified rumors have been circulating for years about billions of drams of unpaid taxes, with those billions stolen from elderly people’s pensions and young people’ education right being hidden under the guise of the so-called scanty ‘philanthropy’. I urge the Armenian prime minister to instruct the appropriate bodies to verify in detail the authenticity of these rumors and present them openly to everyone.   

2. Rumors are also circulating about the creation of a professional mechanism of concealing the numerous criminal offences”.
Serzh Sargsyan then instructed the Government and law enforcement bodies to verify the authenticity of such ‘information’, and he in fact instructed the ‘Republican Party of Armenia’ faction to start the process of stripping Gagik Tsarukyan of his parliamentary deputy mandate.

So it turns out that Serzh Sargsyan, while being aware of that, forgave him for years, in his own words, ‘sponsored’ and ‘raised’ him, and only now he decided not to tolerate it anymore, considering it a mistake. This, however, raises questions and serves as a basis for some natural conclusions:

a) If such ‘information’ was being spread ‘for years’, why wasn’t it verified on the first day? It turns out that  that Serzh Sargsyan abused his office to  cover up ‘Tsarukyan’s crimes. How much does it become the office of the country’s president? In other words, if Serzh Sargsyan attaches a label of ‘criminal’ to Gagik Tsarukyan, he is at least in the position of ‘a person who knows, but does not report’.

b) If, while being aware ‘for years’ of such ‘information’, Serzh Sargsyan cooperated with Prosperous Armenia which made part of the ruling coalition, and until recently he proposed that the same Tsarukyan should come to power by becoming prime minister, and later Armenian president – following the ‘constitutional changes’, then why did he suddenly start to speak from a diametrically opposite position?

c) If, nevertheless, this was not detected on time, then Serzh Sargsyan’s speech and threats are nothing other than an overt order about a political reprisal against the opponent, although it is presented as a measure to liberate the country and  people from Tsarukyan as a representative of the ‘criminal-oligarchic’ class. The accusations that are made a priori against Gagik Tsarukyan can also be made – accusations are ten times as much and with obvious facts -  against  90% of HHK’s ‘elite’.

Serzh Sargsyan’s speech is vulnerable from the legal, political, and moral aspects. HAK views it as an unsuccessful attempt by the ruling regime to distract public opinion from own sins. People know quite well who is to blame for the current troubled situation in the country and they will eventually hold the real criminals accountable,” HAK said in a statement.