New attempt to establish political monopoly in Armenia made: ARF-D issues statement

Armenian Revolutionary Federation-Dashnaktsutyun (ARF-D) has issued a statement regarding the domestic political developments in the country to present its approaches and position over a number of issues.

First the party referred to the decision to be part of the national solidarity government which it says was agreed with sincere motivation to bring the country to the new route of development without any blows and to strengthen the pan-national movement. “We were loyal to our arrangements and tried to regulate all the issues irrespective of different approaches over a number of foreign and domestic political issues and working style,” the statement says.

Referring to the Yerevan City Council elections, the party stressed that the campaign has artificially escalated the domestic political situation and divided the people to "blacks and whites" which put the partnership relations under doubt with the future developments showing that the trust has reached to minimum. In such condition the decision to leave the national solidarity government was unavoidable.

As to the controversial bill backed by the ARF-D faction, the statement says the bill had no aim to harm the negotiations over conduction of snap parliamentary elections but the opposite, was aimed at guaranteeing constitutional and lawful dissolve of the Armenian National Assembly. “The necessity of conduction snap parliamentary elections in one year period is clearly fixed in the action plan of the government and has not been argued. But the conduction of early elections supposes concrete steps and actions for the amendment of the Electoral Code for ensuring really fair, just, transparent and democratic elections,” the statement runs, adding that the change of the police’s status is also necessary to be referred to before the parliamentary elections.

Regarding the terms of the elections, ARF-D believes that the time of conduction of snap elections is not the most important issue of the agenda. “The quality of conduction of elections, formation of political and moral-psychological atmosphere, creation of  legal and organizational prerequisites are much more important,” the statement says, adding that the wish to conduct the elections as soon as possible endanger the organization of competitive elections and creates favorable conditions for the ruling political force only.

The party stressed that the attempts to abort the agenda of conduction snap parliamentary elections according to the clear road map and solidarity justifying with the threat of counter-revolution, and the attempt to hastily conduct elections without presenting reasonable arguments will not bring the country to the right path.

The ARF-D also considers inadmissible the pressures on the parliament and lawmakers aimed at impeding the natural pace of conduction of elections. “The executive power and the law enforcers should reveal and eradicate such phenomena and bring the guilty to responsibility,” the statement says.

The party is convinced that the attempts to escalate the situation, to violate the arrangements as well as the false accusations are aimed at diverting people’s attention from the necessity of ensuring free and competitive elections.

“We are forced to register that we are dealing with new attempt to establish political monopoly in Armenia under the name of democracy. The return to the past is excluded but for the guaranteed present and future it is necessary to avoid the mistakes of the past. We are convinced that there still exists opportunity for dialogue and the right way of settlement of the situation may be found by the solidarity of political forces,” the statement concluded.