YEREVAN, JULY 21, NOYAN TAPAN. In his open letter to the Armenian Pan-National Movement (APNM), former vice speaker of Armenia's National Assembly Karapet Rubinian stated his decision to leave the party, noting that the elections held at the July 17 congress of APNM were rigged. At the 16th congress of APNM, K. Rubinian, among 40 other candidates, was nominated as member of the party's new board, but he was not included in the newly-elected 31-member board. Presenting the reasons for his decision, K. Rubinian wrote: I am leaving the APNM.. According to my observations and information, the results of the elections of APNM members at the July 17 congress were rigged. It is a very strange and regrettable phenomenon as it occurred in a party which advocates liberal democratic principles, in a party which as part of the Armenian National Congress has protested and struggled over two years against the unfair rigged 2008 presidential elections. It is also regrettable that this happened under the conditions when the first Armenian President Levon Ter-Petrosian took the processes prior to and during the congress under his control in order to prevent the Armenian authorities' plans to split the Armenian National Congress. Yet under such strict control, despite all assurances given by the organizing committee, an "exemplary" voting paper, according to which, for example, I was not to be elected to the board, had suddenly appeared during the vote. Since even sick minds cannot imagine me in the "conspiratorial wing", as a person who has closed a deal with the authorities, it only remains to assume one thing - Mr. Ter-Petrosian is thus punishing me for criticizing the policy of the Armenian National Congress, more specifically, he is keeping dissent away from the APNM board. To tell the truth, I am enraged, but I would not leave the party only for this reason. Unfortunately, all this is combined with some irreversible and highly degradation processes within the APNM". In his letter, K. Rubinian also calls on his friends who were delegates of the APNM congress to "sincerely and soberly analyze the conduct of the latest congress".

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