A grassroots website has sprung up in support for Levon Ter-Petrosian as a presidential candidate next year. http://www.levonforpresident.com/
LTP was present at a ceremony at Mariott celebrating the 16-th anniversary of the Independence. He had a speech and the site has videos from A1Plus and Yerkir Media. I was amazed that the Yerkir Media did not include many smug comments. Maybe the smear campaign is in other reports but this snippet is professional.
I was also surprised. I have the feeling that Dashnaks might support LTP. They very well know that they will never be a majority party. It would a nice surprise.
ReplyDeleteI dont change my opinion that it is a Nazzi party but freedom of expression is more important. Dashnaks have the right to exist as a party as much as any other party. Let the people decide.
There are a lot of speculations in the blogosphere, that LTP is in fact encouraged to run by the current government. Bloggers Uzogh and Narjan at LiveJournal have lenghthy posts about this.
ReplyDeleteI'm not really sure what to think - but I know it would be better for everyone if LTP stayed silent and away from everybody as he did during the past 10 years. His return is the very last thing we needed in the current situation. (saying we - I mean the people who want to get rid of Serzh government and establish democracy in this country)
observer, who do you see that is capable of going against the 'varchakan resursner unecoghner' (controllers of the administrative powers)? We saw how Raffi Hovhannisian was defeated a few weeks ago. Then we saw how the opposition behaved during the Attorney General's confirmation hearings and the vote. They showed that the opposition in the parliament is a joke.
ReplyDeleteUzogh still hasn't progressed from labeling LTP and HHSh as 'mazut utoghner' even though as I once mentioned on one of his blogs, a commission led by one of his party's prominent figures, David Lokian, established that the accusations were false.
That said, it still remains to be seen whether he would be a uniting force or not for the oppositions.
We should not forget another fact either; the actual number of votes do not count in Armenia. Will the current administration have the audacity to falsify the votes LTP gets as much as they will with any other candidate?
I think I have to agree with Nazarian on this one and I still find it amazing in Armenia when so many conspiracy theories are out there such as the government pushing LTP to run. Maybe it's true, maybe it's not, and maybe Aram Sarkisian and Nikol Pashinian who are the main guys pushing LTP into the regions to speak to people and flanked him as closely as Ararat Zurabian and Aram Manukian are being duped.
ReplyDeleteWho knows, but anyway, the opposition has no candidate able to take on Serzh and anyone close to showing potential is also gunned down by civil society who want revolution rather than a democratic fight. This means, Artur Baghdasarian and Raffi Hovannisian.
Besides, in a democratic country, if Levon is to be nominated let him be. Already he's initiated discussion the likes of which we've never had from other speeches or appearances by any opposition figure. And if the people don't want him, they won't vote for him. Simple as that.
What is interesting, however, is that with many people I'm sure in government and business not against LTP it is theoretically harder to falsify an election. I think this makes the situation quite unlike any other we've had before although the possibility for polarization and clashes might be there, I don't know.
Anyway, I personally don't think that LTP's return is something that Armenia really needs -- looking back instead of forwards -- but perhaps people will now reflect on the state of things and a real debate will emerge. For me, that's really what I think we need whoever runs and whoever wins.