Thursday, January 14 2021 13:47

ArmInfo. If Serzh Sargsyan had  remained in power, the war would simply not have started. Opposition  candidate for prime minister Vazgen Manukyan stated this in an  interview with RBC. The main opposition candidate noted that during  the first Karabakh war, the figure of Elchibey played a role in the  victory of the Armenian army, and now, Armenia has its own Elchibey.  "On the wave of" color revolutions ", mostly incompetent people come  to power who are not ready to head the government. Pashinyan divided  the society into former and present, split the society. The same is  happening in Ukraine and in other places where the "color revolution"  took place, - he said. "During the first Karabakh war, 1992- 1994,  when we defeated Azerbaijan, it helped us a lot that it was headed by  Abulfaz Elchibey. Then there was still no term "color revolution",  but he was a person who adhered to just such views. Now Azerbaijan  took advantage of the fact that we have our Elchibey, "added  Manukyan. He also believes that if Serzh Sargsyan had remained in  power, the war would simply not have started. Pashinyan, his opponent  noted, curtailed the negotiation process on Nagorno-Karabakh, made a  number of statements from which it followed that the Karabakh problem  was a territorial dispute, and "not a question of the self-  determination of the nation", and allowed Azerbaijan to come to the  conclusion that a war could be started. Answering the question when  Manukyan's candidacy arose as a candidate for the post of prime  minister from the opposition, he said: "Nobody thought about it at  the time. At the time, everyone was preoccupied with the war. The  question of displacing the government, installing a new prime  minister - such a question was not raised.  I even wrote in my letter  that not a new government is needed, but the army should take control  of the war into its own hands. There was no surprise in my  appearance, because I have always been in the politics of Armenia, I  headed the "Karabakh" committee, was the first prime minister, in  1996 I ran for president. I was involved in political activities all  the time. I think for many games I was a compromise figure. They saw  in me a manager who can manage during critical situations. Because in  1992-1993 I was the minister of defense and we began to win the war,  build an army. All this probably mattered. And here it was also  important that the prime minister would be the head of the interim  government. That is, everyone was given a chance to come to some  results in a year during the elections. And the interim prime  minister, that is, I, would not have the right to nominate himself  for the post of prime minister in the future. This also ensured  normal elections, since there was no personal interest of the Prime  Minister to rig the election results.  Moreover, everyone knew that I  had always fought for fair elections.  Manukyan also noted that he  was one of the first to urge Pashinyan to resign, because he knew  what was happening at the front, but the population of our country  did not know. Because measures were taken to cover up the  information, so the Armenian population did not understand what was  happening. But I was always in touch with the fronts, with the  generals, with the army, and I knew that our situation was  deplorable.