The Armenakan Party was founded in 1885 by Mekertich Portukalian as part of the national movement in Van in the Ottoman Empire.

Following the 2003 Armenian parliamentary elections, the party won 2.9% of the popular vote, failing to win any seats which effected it's influence in the political landscape of Armenia.

The organization declared "Gone is our honor; our churches have been violated; they kidnapped our brides and our youth; they have taken away our rights and try to exterminate our nation.."[1] On 26 April 1872, villages around Van sent a request, "In order to save ourselves from these evils, we are prepared to follow you even if we must shed blood or die.

[3] The Armenakan Party was established in Van by Mekertich Portukalian, Setrak Gabudian, and Hampig Der Hampartsoumian in 1885[4] as an underground organization against the ruling system.

The founders of the Armenakan party, Mekertich Portukalian, Setrak Gabudian, and Hampig Der Hampartsoumian kept in touch with the leaders, and published a journal of political and social enlightenment, "Armenia".

The party's main misconception was that enemies of the Ottoman Empire would intervene and rescue the Armenian people throughout the period 1885–1918.

A main figure in the Ramgavar party, Diran Pasha, led the resistance within the Ottoman political arena and subsequently picked up arms when the Ottoman government began the systematic annihilation of the Armenian population in Anatolia and Northeastern Turkey (Western Armenia).

With his band of brothers, Zinvadz Lerner, Diran Pasha held out the Ottoman forces from the ancient castle at Haghardzin village.

The influx of Diasporan Armenians also encouraged the propagation of the party and its right of centre ideology attracted elements in the new republic.

Of immense importance was also the establishment of the highly respected and popular Azg daily, an official organ of the Armenian Liberal Democrats.

The last assembly of the official Armenian Democratic Liberal Party (ADL) took place in Spring 2009 in Amman, Jordan.

But with stronger candidates from its rivals and certainly higher membership and political voting power in the other two, ADL never held representation in the Lebanese Parliament until the end of the 1990s.

ADL Lebanon won its first-ever parliamentary seat in 2000, as an ally to Rafik Hariri's Future Movement, when the latter opted to form alliances with ADL and the Social Democrat Hunchakian Party to the detriment of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, the traditional political power maker of Lebanese-Armenian politics.