Election results at 16th congress of APNM rigged, former
member of party Karapet Rubinian says
21-07-2010 20:00:00 | Armenia | Politics
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".