Today in the “Congress” hotel the ANC Armenian Center for International Political Studies, in collaboration with the U.S. National Democratic Institute held a debate on the issues of inner-party democracy and party building. The participants of the debate were Araik Hovhannisyan from the ANC, Vahan Babayan from the PAP. ARF member Arsen Hambardzumyan was also invited to the debate, however, he wasn’t present. The discussion was conducted by the ANC senior expert Ruben Mehrabyan.
“Being ideological structure Armenia’s Republican Party has always attached importance to the presentation of its ideology to the society, deriving from it approaches. It is noted much that there are often splitting of the parties. Republican Party of Armenia was the first to be officially registered in our country. And we had more replenishments than losses. Our trodden path was not easy and we have had very strong leaders.” said Araik Hovhannisyan.
In his turn, Mr. Babayan, somewhat contradicting Hovhannisyan, noted. “I do not think that, for example, people gathered around Suren Khachatryan, Ruben Hayrapetyan and Samvel Alexanian in Syunik region, by reading national series. The role of the individual was far more important than the national series.”
Republican Araik Hovhannisyan asked to maintain an atmosphere of respect. “I’d ask you to be more correct when naming those people. And if you don’t know, I will inform you that Samvel Alexanian isn’t the ANC member.”
