“I tried to do everything possible in order to have the law reign supreme in the country.” Try to guess who the author of these words is. Perhaps you’re thinking it’s a patriot, a very patriot person, but someone on the verge of dying who, unfortunately, wasn’t able to reach his goal.
You’re right if you thought about achieving success, but not in the first case. Fine, I’ll help you out with an insert from the same text: “…I instilled the base for the fight against corruption.” Still didn’t help? Ok, how about this one: “By forming part of the government, I didn’t refrain from taking on the responsibility and got involved in the most difficult and vulnerable fields.” Now perhaps we have a circle of “suspects”. Fine, I won’t make you wait any longer. You will know who the author is after this last sentence: “Dear compatriot, we have been together as friends for the past 117 years.” Even if you don’t consider the members of the given party (I think you already guessed which party I’m talking about) as your allies, much less friends for 117 years, it doesn’t matter; you already know that we’re dealing with the Armenian Revolutionary Federation-Dashnakstutyun (although it’s hard to consider the fields of the ARF the most difficult and vulnerable).
The abovementioned phrases can be considered references to the ARF anniversary booklet, which can also be called pre-electoral because distribution among the population is underway. This is natural because, as head of the ARF faction Hrair Karapetyan said during a press conference on Friday at the “Pastark” club, the holidays quickly made way for the pre-electoral campaign. According to H. Karapetyan, it’s very important to have the upcoming parliamentary elections be a political struggle, a political process, “and not this or that kind of display”. He also said that the ARF is nowhere near implementing the policy of raising the party’s rating through the means of “black” PR.
As for the party’s proportional list, Karapetyan said that it’s too early to talk about that because the date of the elections hasn’t even been scheduled yet. He treats predictions normally. However, the ARF faction leader found it necessary to recall that their party is not based on the members. “The ARF doesn’t care whether Hrair Karapetyan will be the 3rd or the 15th,” announced Mr. Karapetyan without going further in detail about how much emphasis he places on being 3rd or 15th.
“We don’t care how many seats we’ll have in the government or the parliament. The political course is important to us,” said H. Karapetyan. He proved that by the fact that there was a time when Levon Ter-Petrosyan had offered the ARF to administer many ministries and embassies. According to the speaker, the proposed offers were twice the amount of the current ones. However, the ARF refused because the political course did not correspond to the party’s point of view and thus, it turned into the opposition. It has not only become the opposition, but also it’s possible to see the ARF become the opposition again. As you hear Hrair Karapetyan, you get the impression that the ARF is in favor of taking on the image of the opposition. “When the Dashnaktsutyun is the opposition, it’s the opposition with principles and an ideology.” According to H. Karapetyan, the Armenian authorities’ line of conduct concerning the major issue, which is the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, is the best interests at heart of the ARF. However, a couple of days ago his partisan Hrant Markaryan announced during a press conference that the ARF is against the current version of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement because “there is a cession of territories and no final fixed settlement.” H. Markaryan tried to level that contradiction by mentioning the following: “The Armenian authorities haven’t announced and, I’m certain that they won’t announce that Artsakh can be a part of Azerbaijan. Secondly, the guarantees for security and the status issue reign supreme for the people of Artsakh; the rest is just trade of territories, strategic issues and they must be clarified.”
“There are issues, which we would solve differently,” said H. Karapetyan, recalling that the ARF has proposed to take steps towards raising the pensions. The proposal was rejected; or for example, the fight against shady economy and corruption. “We can still fight against the shady economy,” stated Mr. Karapetyan and said that there was a time when they were suggesting forming a separate body to fight against corruption, however that proposal was rejected. The Dashnaktsutyun is also unsatisfied with all the commotion regarding the two-digit economic growth of Armenia because the polarization of the rich and the poor has reached extreme heights. “The people who are oppressed in their own country can’t fight for the Armenian Issue,” mentioned H. Karapetyan.
We have to agree with what Karapetyan has to say. It’s simply illogical that the ARF is trying to separate itself from the government. The political course of the authorities, which the ARF can approve or disapprove, is also the course taken by the ARF. The interesting thing is that the Dashnaktsutyun is currently forgiven for the same thing that the Orinats Yerkir (Rule of Law) party was not forgiven for, which was to be part of the government and try to get on the good side of the people by being oppositional at the same time.
As Prime Minister Andranik Margarian stated in his yearend press conference last year, the authorities have already gotten used to the way that the Dashnaktsutyun works. On the other hand, the person forgiving is not the Hanrapetakan party (Armenian Republican Party), but rather Robert Kocharyan whom the ARF is trying to threaten with the plan to become part of the opposition if the party doesn’t get many seats in the parliament. Perhaps that’s the reason why Hrair Karapetyan is speaking on behalf of the ARF when he warns that if there is electoral fraud during the parliamentary elections, the Dashnaktsutyun will speak out and will have a strict role. Perhaps the tolerance is due to the fact that Robert Kocharyan doesn’t want to ruin his ties before the end of his presidential term with a party, which goes back 117 years and, according to Hrair Karapetyan, is the most stable, most principal and most ideological party.
In order for you to get a better picture of the semi-governmental/semi-oppositional manner of working, I suggest you read the abovementioned booklet. The following is written in one of the paragraphs: “As a socialist party, I tried to do everything possible to bring back justice in our country step by step…I tried to make reforms in different fields with the same purposes: ambulatory-polyclinic medical aid became free of charge, pensions and subsidies for the people continue to rise consistently, although little by little.” If the ARF believes that it has done all this, it means that the party is governmental. Neither the opposition nor the pro-government and pro-centralized political parties have those means. The following is written in the concluding paragraphs:
“However, to be honest, not all of my desires and plans became a reality. There were many circumstances that stood in the way, including the ARF’s small number of deputies in the parliament, not many members in the executive and local government bodies and the opposition of different powers against the ARF making radical reforms in Armenia.” It’s clear that you can’t classify the opposition in that list perhaps because even the opposition won’t be competent to do anything in the case of being against the “radical reforms”. If the oppositionist against the goals of the ARF is not the Armenian opposition, then it’s the government. So, who is a pro-government party besides the ARF? Of course, the Hanrapetakan party (Republican Party).
I would like to recall that last year, during the yearend event dedicated to the anniversary of the ARF, Vahan Hovhannisyan announced that the Dashnaktsutyun has the answers to all the questions (including how to get rid of corruption), however now is not the time to give those answers. The time will come for that when the ARF becomes an absolute majority in the Armenian parliament. So, it’s rare that Armenia finds the key for the fight against corruption in the next four years. As for now, the Dashnaktsutyun won’t really be able to show its coalitional parties the right path, even by hinting. Either that’s a secret, or they’re not sure if those parties will grasp the concept.