Armenian Communist leader Sergey Badalyan has said that unless
his party receives at least 25 per cent of votes in the 30th
May parliamentary elections he will cry foul. He also said that
parliament would be dominated by the left and by the
right-centrist Unity bloc, which is led by Defence Minister
Vazgen Sarkisyan. Badalyan said he thought the former governing
party, the right-wing Armenian Pan-National Movement, would
suffer a "crushing defeat". The following is the text of the
report by the Armenian news agency Snark on 12th May//
Yerevan, 11th May: "The Communist Party has repeatedly said
that these elections are the last chance for the peaceful
settlement of the crisis of power, but nobody has heeded these
appeals apart from the leader of the National Democratic Union
(NDU), Vazgen Manukyan, and the [Armenian Revolutionary
Federation] Dashnaksutyun party [ARFD]," the First Secretary of
the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Armenia (CPA),
Sergey Badalyan, said. He thinks that if an attempt at
falsification of the elections is made this time, then there
will be no elections next time.
"Actually, the CPA is claiming several tens of per cents
of votes, if not the majority of votes," Badalyan said. He
thinks that the authorities are preparing falsification
beforehand, saying that just 15 per cent of voters will vote
for the CPA. "A minimum of 25-30 per cent under the
proportional system and approximately 10 MPs approved by the
electoral commission under the majority system are more or less
acceptable figures for the CPA. We will regard any deviation
from these figures as a case of falsification," Badalyan said.
"Mainly left-wingers and right-centrists will be present
in the future Armenian parliament, and the extreme
right-wingers, including the APNM [Armenian Pan-National
Movement] and its fragments, will suffer a crushing defeat,"
Badalyan said. Moreover, Badalyan considers that although the
right-centrists will be present mainly in the form of the Unity
pre-election bloc, they will get neither an absolute nor even a
simple majority in parliament. Their maximum result will be
about 50 per cent of the votes and this will be if we "take
into account the intimidation, bribery and manhandling of
voters, which are well-known to society," Badalyan thinks. He
considers that, besides the Unity bloc, the ARFD, NDU and CPA
will get into parliament.
"There is no such dominant force today as the APNM was on
the eve of the last elections. The authorities are weak and
rather many-sided and, although they are telling the people
that almost all the seats [in parliament] are already decided,
at present it will be not so easy to do this except by twisting
voters' arms," Badalyan said. The new parliament will be more
in accord with the disposition of political forces than the
previous one, he considers. However, Badalyan does not believe
that one can count on a dramatic change in the situation in the
country and the "victory of logic and steadfast positions"
while the incumbent president [Robert Kocharyan] is in power.
Badalyan said he favoured limiting presidential powers and
transferring them to the parliament and the government.
Source: Snark news agency, Yerevan, in Russian 0430 gmt 12 May
99