ARMENIA
2011 20¼.زðî î²ðÆ, ÂÆô 65
Sarkisian Secures Coalition Support For Another Term In Office ARF Condemn Coalition Deal, Calls it Totalitarian RFE/RL -- After months of foot-dragging, businessman Gagik Tsarukian and his Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK), a key member of the ruling coalition, on February 17 formally committed themselves to helping President Serzh Sarkisian win a second term in office in 2013. In a joint declaration signed with Sarkisian s Republican Party and the third coalition partner, Orinats Yerkir, the BHK also appeared to give up its ambition to win next year s parliamentary elections. At the presidential elections the Political Coalition will come up with one single nomination in the person of the current President, creating thus guarantees of further continuation of the changes and sustainable development of our country for the next five years, reads the declaration signed by Sarkisian, Tsarukian and Orinats Yerkir leader Artur Baghdasarian. The signing ceremony came after more than one week of intensive negotiations between the HHK and the BHK. The latter has been under strong pressure to officially pledge support for Sarkisian in the next presidential election due in early 2013. Tsarukian s party, which is believed to be unofficially backed by former President Robert Kocharian, has clearly been reluctant do so. Speaking to journalists, Tsarukian said he has decided to endorse Sarkisian s reelection bid now because of severe internal and external challenges facing Armenia. He said the incumbent president needs to feel his power and be firm in coping with them. The chief HHK spokesman, Eduard Sharmazanov, dismissed media speculation that the fact that Sarkisian will not be mentioned in the coalition declaration is a concession to the BHK. Everyone knows that the current president of the country is Serzh Sarkisian,
Sharmazanov said. In another far-reaching statement, the coalition leaders made clear that their parties will not strive to increase their political weight through contesting against each other or changing correlation of forces within the Coalition in the May 2012 parliamentary elections. The declaration also says they will have even more seats in Armenia s next parliament. Aram Safarian, a senior BHK member, refused to specify whether that means Tsarukian and his allies will no longer aim for a parliamentary majority. Please, do not remind me of past things, he said. The declaration s references to the 2012 polls were strongly condemned by the opposition Zharangutyun (Heritage) party. The ugliest thing in that declaration is an effective announcement of the falsification of the next parliamentary elections, said Stepan Safarian, a Zharangutyun leader. Safarian claimed that the governmentcontrolled Central Election Commission was thus instructed to rig the vote in a way that would correspond to the letter and spirit of the coalition declaration. For its part, the Armenian National Congress (HAK), a more radical and influential opposition force, said Sarkisian s endorsement by the BHK dashed Kocharian s perceived hopes to return to power in 2013. It s all very simple, Levon Zurabian, the top HAK coordinator, told RFE/RL s Armenian service. Serzh Sarkisian today wields the power levers and he can impose any sanctions on Tsarukian and any other member of the BHK. They are simply saving their businesses and thinking about their security.
ARF Condemns Coalition Deal The Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) condemned a new powersharing deal cut by President Serzh Sarkisian and his political allies, saying it threatens to
Signing the Deal. L-R: Gagik Tsarukian, President Serzh Sarkisian and Arthur Baghdassarian thrust Armenia into authoritarianism. Armen Rustamian, an ARF leader, called these declaration provisions "absurd," saying that the coalition parties are effectively predetermining the outcome of the parliamentary polls due in May 2012. "Today the coalition forces have more than 100 deputies," Rustamian said. "Can their presence get any bigger? At whose expense? Must there be no opposition at all in this country?" "At issue is a monopolization of the entire political stage," he said. Hrant Markarian, the de facto head of the opposition party's worldwide governing Bureau, also denounced the deal, saying that it will have "extremely negative" consequences for the country. "In effect, a dictatorship, a totalitarian system is thus being formed in the government camp," he charged.
ARF, itself was a member of the ruling coalition until April 2009. It pulled out of the government in protest against Sarkisian's policy of rapprochement with Turkey and has since been increasingly critical of his track record. Markarian and Rustamian spoke to RFE/RL's Armenian service as their party launched what it calls a broad-based movement against Armenia's culture of electoral fraud. They said the movement will focus on raising public awareness of electoral rights and discouraging Armenians from selling their votes. Rustamian made clear that ARF is ready to cooperate with all other opposition forces, notably the Armenian National Congress (HAK) led by former President Levon Ter-Petrosian, in promoting the conduct of free and fair elections. "We are ready to cooperate with everyone, regardless of their political orientation," he said.
Prominent Turkish Publisher Honored in Armenia (RFE/RL) - Ragip Zarakolu, a prominent Turkish human rights campaigner and book publisher, was honored by Armenia s National Library for his long-running advocacy of Turkey s recognition of the 1915 Armenian Genocide in the Ottoman Empire. The director of the state-funded library, Davit Sargsian, paid tribute to Zarakolu s decades-long activism as he presented a medal to the founder of the Istanbul-based Belge publishing house. Sargsian also thanked him for donating dozens of books to Armenia s largest library. We are talking about an individual committed to the ideas of humanism, Sargisian said at a ceremony in Yerevan. Unfortunately, he does not have an easy life in modern-day Turkey because of his activities, principles and thinking. This is the most important award of my life, Zarakolu said in a short speech. Zarakolu rose to prominence in the 1970s as a newspaper columnist and editor highlighting human rights abuses committed
in Turkey. He was twice imprisoned by military governments in Ankara before founding, together with other prominent Turks, the Human Rights Association of Turkey in 1986. Around that time, Belge began publishing books on taboo subjects such as the mass killings and deportations of Armenians in Ottoman Turkey. It has since translated into Turkish more than a dozen books by Diaspora- Armenian authors challenging the official Turkish version of those events. At least two of those translations landed Zarakolu in court. A Turkish court ruled in June 2008 that the publication of one of those books, written by the British-Armenian author George Jerjian, insulted the institutions of the Turkish Republic. Zarakolu received a suspended five-month prison sentence. Speaking at a news conference in Yerevan, Zarakolu reaffirmed his belief that the slaughter of more than one million Ottoman Armenians was a genocide that must be officially recognized by the Turkish state. Recognition of the Armenian Davit Sargisian (L), director of the National Library, gives a medal to Ragip Zarakolu, a prominent Turkish Genocide would not humiliate Turkey, he said. On the contrary, human rights campaigner and publisher. it would make it greater.
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