Based on the National Assembly’s regulatory law passed in 1995, it was clear as to what happens to an MP, who decides to leave the given National Assembly faction after being elected based on a list. According to that clause, the rat racers had to drop their mandates. However in 1997, that clause was taken out of the law and the “leap” of the “Republic” party MPs began. It was then that this became known as the “rat race”. According to leader of the Armenian Christian Democratic Union Khosrov Harutyunyan, there’s a fear that this rat race will become political culture.
– Back in 1995, when the National Assembly was being formed with its new Constitution, we took the initiative of forming a regulatory law. Through our and then NA chairman Babken Ararktsyan’s combined efforts, we passed a very important clause for the law: the MPs elected based on the list must become members of the corresponding faction. In other words, they can’t be elected and then say that they don’t want to be members of the given faction. This is in the interests of the voter and it’s a sign of courtesy towards the voters by the political parties. The relativity of the NA political parties has to do with the votes they receive from their electorates during the elections and those votes shouldn’t change. If an MP is elected from the list of any political party, this means that the voter is casting his vote to the list, not the MP personally. If the MP wishes to leave the faction, then he has to drop his mandate. This was the political format which, on the one hand, guaranteed the conceptual political structure and the configuration of adequate election results, while on the other hand, it turned the National Assembly into a more responsible and predictable structure. In fact, this clause didn’t refer to the members of political parties who had been elected by a majority of votes. The proposal was accepted, but it only worked until 1997. At the time, the “Republic” party started having some problems what with the internal situation of the Armenian National Movement (ANM). Edward Egoryan and his group didn’t come to terms with the ANM administration and didn’t want to go along with the party’s course. Egoryan was faced with a problem: it was necessary to either split up the ANM or leave the party. But if he left the faction, he had to drop his mandate as well. In order to solve the continuous political and party issues, as well as stay in the political field and keep his mandates, Egoryan, as a responsible and a major figure in politics, came up with the initiative of changing that regulation. The proposal wasn’t accepted the first time, but things turned around the second time and it was accepted. Egoryan and his allies were able to pass the amendment and it was confirmed by then president of Armenia Levon Ter-Petrosyan. As soon as the law was passed, Egoryan and his faction left the party and founded the “Democratic Homeland” deputy group. Others also left the faction and on February 3, 1998, the amendment of the regulatory law gave the National Assembly an opportunity to go through some serious reforms. As the years passed by, nobody really paid attention to this issue anymore. In fact, no matter how strange it sounds, the lack of that benefits everyone-both the opposition and the majority in politics. The lack of that norm infected the National Assembly with a virus. But that clause would force the political parties to be careful when forming their lists. Let’s take for example the businessmen MPs that left the Rule of Law party just recently. First of all, as a voter, it was very strange for me to hear that their leave didn’t have an influence on the Rule of Law party. Imagine me as one who votes for Rule of Law, I have trusted them and have cast my vote. We can assume that the list is not made by chance, right?
– What do you mean?
– The more a person plays a major role during the pre-election period with his promises, the more higher he goes, and the opposite. Thus, the MPs who found themselves in the transition must take more action and play a major role in making promises during this pre-election period. But suddenly you have the same MPs come out and say that those promises don’t mean anything. Excuse me, but as a voter, I feel cheated on. Does that mean that the list was made for no reason? If the old regulation was still in effect, entering the faction would have more meaning. What’s more, those MPs wouldn’t say that they don’t care whether their leader resigns and leave the party. For example, I would ask my political party leader to explain the political approach first for faction members, then during an out-of-turn session.
– A. Baghdasaryan chose to change his political course. Isn’t that enough?
– A decision had to be made for that and the MPs have to participate in making that decision. It’s not like I’m the president and everything goes as I say. Changing the political course means to make a new qualitative decision, which leads to an out-of-turn session. Perhaps some 60,000 members of Rule of Law are against that. Has anyone asked their opinion? So, it doesn’t matter if those 60,000 members participate or not. This says a lot about a totally different internal political structure. I assure you that I truly don’t understand how they decided in one day to get up and leave the coalition. There had to be serious discussions among party members before that and we, as a society, had to be aware of what was going on. We didn’t see or hear about that, just like we didn’t see or hear about the serious discussions going on when the parties were entering the coalition. What happened to the promises they made during elections?
– Perhaps that’s the reason why the businessmen left the Rule of Law. For example, perhaps Alexan Petrosyan promised to produce tomato paste during the elections, but left the party in order to save himself.
– But in that case, Alexan Petrosyan had to do everything so I could see that Petrosyan did all he could, so that his party leader wouldn’t make such a quick decision, so that I could see that things didn’t work out between them, they dropped their mandates and left the coalition. This was the right thing to do. We didn’t see this. Instead of that, they simply say ‘well, he’s a businessman, how can a businessman be part of the opposition?’ I understand that to be both a businessman and an oppositionist is hard, but that’s not the reason. After all, we have voters and they have to at least be kind enough to respect the voters. They were the ones who voted for them.
– Perhaps they are not dropping their mandates with the fear that after that, they will not be able to do business and thus not fulfill the promises they had made to their voters.
– Businessmen are MPs only for 2-3 years. The majority of the Rule of Law members were businessmen, while there were few deputies.
– They were very small businessmen, but once they came to power, everyone started mentioning their names as businessmen who will develop. Isn’t that so?
– No matter how small or large, they were businessmen. They were working in the business field, solving problems, had economic products and were taking steps to reach success in economy without even being an MP. Of course, having power is an opportunity to secure your own business and keeping it away from any danger. As a matter of fact, this not only refers to Armenia; there’s a little or more of everything in any country. We are dealing with something else: people actually saw how a political party can leave the coalition. This is normal from the political perspective, but it’s unsatisfactory for constructive and good politics because that may be the result of provocation. Provocation and politics just don’t mix. I say: if you are public political figures, have the decency in you to present your political debate so I can understand. I don’t mean the debates and bazaars taking place at the National Assembly that we saw on television a couple of days ago.
– Aren’t you thinking about proposing that regulatory norm to be in effect once again?
– I don’t have the right to take that initiative. Recently, one of the MPs said that leaving the faction and dropping the mandate has to become a new tradition in Armenia. This shouldn’t become a new tradition, rather it has to be regulated by the law just like before and it seems as though they don’t want to bring that back. But that will raise the MPs’ sense of responsibility, something which we need to see today. We can’t lead this kind of politics; the National Assembly is a governmental structure. The governmental structure can’t be lowered to the level of my political issues no matter how justified I may be. There is an explanation for everything and even be in someone else’s shoes, but it’s one thing to explain and another thing to approve that. We must all understand that the number one constitutional political structure of the country is the National Assembly and not the executive branch of government or the president of Armenia. The National Assembly has the power and is the leader in the country’s politics and the politics it leads depends on its structure, logic, and sense of responsibility.