Nelly Grigoryan

By participating in the upcoming parliamentary elections, the Armenian National Movement (ANM) has made a bid to return to active politics. The proportional party list contains 41 names. The first three are Ararat Zurabyan (chairman of the board), Aram Manukyan (deputy chairman of the board) and Khachatur Kokobelyan (Yerevan State University professor). 50% of those on the list are unemployed. The party leaders are convinced that the party will get at least 15% of the vote. Of course it won’t be presented to the ANM on a silver tray. At the same time ANM members believe that “if we were to talk about real numbers we would get many more votes.” But 15% is the number they think that will be possible to register and defend. “The public thinks that the ANM possesses big financial resources, but the fact is that money, like rats, tends to flee a sinking ship,” says Ararat Zurabyan.

The ANM doesn’t rule out forming pre- or post-election blocs “if they are based on the same ideological principles,” or at least “if they serve the same purpose”. Incidentally, the ANM has set as a primary clause in its platform “the resignation of the illegitimate president who seized power, the restoration of constitutional order, and the establishment of legitimate government.” ANM categorically opposes “the distortion of the Constitution aimed at legitimizing the dictatorship-in-the-making, promoting state terror and shattering the foundations of the state.”

Moreover, “the constitutional amendments were devised in conditions of strict secrecy, not by an official body but by an unknown and anonymous group,” reads the statement by the board of the ANM. “The secrecy in which the document was conceived, its orientation, and its results prove that that it is a clear order by the Dashnaktsutiun, whose plan to establish a dictatorship and rule the people without a mandate lies at the core of this distortion… This is a specific act of revenge that Kocharyan and the ARF are taking on a Constitution they were uncomfortable with.” Taking all this into consideration, the ANM calls upon voters to “prevent this clear conspiracy”.

The state’s internal and foreign policy issues should, according to the ANM program, “directly or indirectly stem from the interests of the citizens of Armenia,” and “an end should be put to the immature policy that denies the right to self-determination of Nagorno Karabakh, and real negotiations with the obligatory participation of Nagorno Karabakh should begin.” The leaders of the ANM believe that as long as the main political problem (the Nagorno Karabakh conflict) is not resolved, all statements about employment, social security, economic growth, etc. are empty promises. Thus, in Aram Manukyan’s opinion, a political force like the ANM “has the right, moreover, is obliged, and has the ability too, to return Armenia to the path it was following in the mid-1990s, when our country was an island of democracy.”

The second factor that has necessitated the ANM’s return to active politics is the internal political situation. “The government does nothing to create an atmosphere of tolerance in the country. The political field has been intentionally fragmented, which both weakens the field and diminishes the political parties in the eyes of people.” In response to the question/accusation: “During the 1995 parliamentary and 1996 presidential elections, the ANM itself violated its achievements and laid the foundations for irregularities,” Aram Manukyan says, “Nobody denies that there were irregularities. These occurrences were the results of behavior in certain contingencies. We are responsible for our victories and achievements, and for mistakes and shortcomings. This government learned from the former only the negative manifestations, multiplying them by tens and hundreds.”

“And I believe people will give us vote of confidence once again,” says the deputy chairman of the ANM. “ It’s not in order to take revenge that we are attempting to return to active politics, we want to strengthen free thinking. Everybody is trying to get Moscow’s ‘OK’. The ANM rejects all kinds of ‘OKs’.”

So far the ANM has been campaigning through interviews and public statements, almost exclusively in the capital. Visits and rallies in the provinces are planned for the last week of the campaign.