So, it turned out that the world brand of Rule of Law leader Arthur Baghdasaryan was nothing but a local brand, better yet, it was a practical joke played by the Rule of Law party. As Arthur Baghdasaryan likes to teach his fellow members, there are some things in politics that are based on practical jokes and the bigger the joke is, the less people will doubt that it actually is. And so, with that said, “Rule of Law” frequently announces that Arthur Baghdasaryan gives interviews to the world’s most well-known journalists during his visits to European countries. It’s clear to see what the party is doing; by hearing the names of the mass media, we should say “Oh” and “Rule of Law” will still consider that its PR is hitting the right target. Meanwhile, the last interview of the “Rule of Law” leader, which gave way to the circulation of the names of the top European mass media, made it clear that the “Rule of Law” party just doesn’t understand what it means to give an interview. In particular, on October 10, when Baghdasaryan was at the Caucasian political institute of the London Kingdom college, the European mass media mentioned above were also present on the same day and at the same time and Arthur Baghdasaryan had seen them from afar. It’s obvious that the journalists hadn’t come to see Baghdasaryan on the same day and at the same hour. This is almost like saying someone walked into a store, saw a famous Hollywood star and claimed that the star had come to the store just to see that person. This reminds me of another case concerning Arthur Baghdasaryan. While he was still the Chairman of the National Asembly of Armenia and was in France, as he passed by Nikola Sarcosi in the Senate corridor, the people near Arthur Baghdasaryan at that moment starting spreading the rumors that Arthur Baghdasaryan had had a private talk with possible French presidential candidate Sarcosi and that means that France only wants to see Baghdasaryan as the next president of Armenia. In fact, these are just some of the similar events that have happened to Arthur Baghdasaryan. During one of his visits to Europe, while Baghdasaryan was still chairman, he had demanded that the presses spread news about him meeting with this or that director of an international organization when he has only seen the given person at a banquet and has simply expressed his well wishings. So, it’s not by chance that some Armenian representations of international organizations have gone to the National Assembly, denying that there have been such meetings. However, the political practical joke of the “Rule of Law” is not that bad if we look at it from the PR-practical joke point of view. During the upcoming elections, the party’s goal is to present to the Armenian people that Arthur Baghdasaryan is the favorite presidential candidate of the North, South, East and the West and has received the “okay” of all countries across the globe. But “Rule of Law” doesn’t consider the fake interviews with European mass media or the fake meetings with Sarcosi and others as a crime because PR techniques aren’t regulated by the law. The same goes for the so-called medals that Arthur Baghdasaryan has received and when the Armenian voter finds out about that, he understands that the world has made a choice for Armenia’s president and the only thing left to do is for the citizens to go and confirm the “okay” of the foreign countries by casting their votes. And although, according to the “Rule of Law”, receiving a medal in Europe means that it is already determined who is going to win in the 2008 presidential elections, I would like to disagree and compare the medals received by Arthur Baghdasaryan and the medals and rankings of former chairman of the Armenian parliament Armen Khachatryan. Only during the last year of his term did Armen Khachatryan receive the highest award of the Orthodox Church of the East-the “Saint Ignatios Teoforos” award. In fact, Armen Khachatryan has three of those awards. In 2001, he received the Orthodox Church’s highest award- the “Saint Andreas” award and the Russian Patriarch of all Russians Alexi the third awarded Khachatryan with the award of the international fund of the World Orthodox Association at the AlSavior Church in Moscow: Russian president Vladimir Putin, deputy prime minister of Lebanon Isama Fares and Serbia’s holy patriarch Pavel have also received that award. Weeks after Khachatryan received the award, general director of UNESCO Koichiro Matsuura handed former National Assembly chairman Armen Khachatryan the UNESCO silver medal, while the Byurakan observatory has named a new star that it has discovered after Armen Khachatryan. Besides hat, Armen Khachatryan was also an honorable member of the Writers’ Union of Armenia. These are just few of the rankings, medals and certificates that Arthur Baghdasaryan’s predecessor has received throughout the past ten years. So, if we go along with the logic of “Rule of Law, then the whole world, including the political leaders and extreme patriarchs want Armen Khachatryan to be the next president of Armenia. However, everyone knows that those certificates and medals are just part of a ceremony and are given to the person who represents the parliament of the given country. As for Arthur Baghdasaryan, despite the rumors going around in the “world”, nobody recognized France’s high-ranking award, which is nowhere near Armenia’s award or the medal given by the president of Austria which, as some sources say, Arthur Baghdasaryan is going to try to reach. So, what’s left is to imagine what kind of a ruckus there would be if we found out that a star would be named after leader of “Rule of Law” Arthur Baghdasaryan, or that he and the Russian president have received the same award at the same place and at the same hour.
In general, it’s hard to say how Europe considers Arthur Baghdasaryan, but Baghdasaryan’s delegation members that have traveled to different countries with Arthur Baghdasaryan claim that the latter doesn’t place much emphasis on European values. For example, during his official visit to Italy while he was Chairman of the National Assembly, Baghdasaryan paid a visit to the well-known Uffici museum in Florence. Although that day was a non-working day at the museum, however the mayor of Florence had opened the museum especially for the former National Assembly chairman. What do you think? Did the former chairman go to glance at the paintings of Leonardo da Vinci or Boticelli? No, he didn’t and the Armenian delegation was forced to explain to the Florence mayor that Baghdasaryan simply had a cold. Meanwhile, the rather healthy Baghdasaryan had told his delegation members: “Whatever, no museum, I don’t feel like it, let’s go eat pizza”. Something like this also happened in Paris, when Baghdasaryan had been given 500 dollar seats for an opera, but once again he didn’t feel like it. But what I didn’t find out was what food the “Rule of Law” leader ate that day instead of going to see an opera.