The ruling Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) acknowledges that there are lots of problems in the country, but it does not think that a change of government can be a solution to them, according to a senior representative.
Hermine Naghdalian, who occupies the post of deputy speaker in the Armenian parliament, reacted over the weekend to the calls for a regime change made by opposition leaders at the October 24 rally in Yerevan.
While Gagik Tsarukian, the leader of the largest of the three parties that organized the rally, Prosperous Armenia (BHK), struck a more cautious note by urging the current leadership to comply with a set of demands concerning social and economic issues as well as reforms of the election laws or face the prospect of an ouster, the leaders of the BHK’s more radical opposition allies, the Armenian National Congress (HAK) and Heritage, Levon Ter-Petrosian and Raffi Hovannisian, made more explicit calls for an immediate regime change.
Armenia - Deputy parliament speaker Hermine Naghdalian
Talking to media on Saturday, the HHK’s Naghdalian said that the party’s leader, President Serzh Sarkisian, also acknowledges that “there are more people than those attending the Friday rally who may be dissatisfied with the current situation”. But, she said, he does not think that a change of government is needed for solving the current problems.
“The ruling party has a commitment to gradually solve these problems,” the deputy parliament speaker said, implying the mandate that the HHK got during the 2012 parliamentary elections and later, in 2013, when President Sarkisian was reelected for another five-year term.
“For the time being, there is no exclusive situation. I don’t think that there are any grounds for a change of government in the country,” Naghdalian concluded.