The legend about “kind czars” and “bad boyars” (“boyars” are those who served the czars) has been implanted in Russia since feudal times. The point of the legend was that the czars were very kind and loved the people. They just didn’t know how badly the boyars treated the people. The legends were preserved till the Soviet period. Only the methods were changed. People used to write protest letters about local chinovniks (government workers) to the Kremlin and even the mausoleum of Lenin. In order to keep this legend alive they from time to time processed some of the complaints.
As a matter of fact the same is currently being done in Armenia. The evicted people go to Serge Sargsyan, boxing champion Israel Hakobkokhyan goes to Sargsyan, former foreign minister Alexander Arzumanyan’s wife is applying to Sargsyan, and so on. Moreover, the evicted ones, Hakobkokhyan, and the former minister’s wife, Melissa Brown, are complaining about common illegalities because in all of the mentioned cases, the laws of the Republic of Armenia were violated. And Serge Sargsyan, who in fact doesn’t have any connection to all that based on his post (at least the functions of the Prime Minister don’t include those), promises to look into things and help. Here the syndrome of the “kind czar” also works. They pretend that Sargsyan doesn’t know elections in Armenia are being falsified or that people are illegally being evicted from their houses or that criminal cases are planned against politicians. If he knew that, he wouldn’t let it happen.
The tricky thing is that in certain cases Sargsyan may help or try to change the situation just for campaigning purposes. But the overall system will not be changed. The victims cannot run to Sargsyan every five minutes for help. In fact the good leader is not the one who happily receives citizens and tries to solve their issues. The good leader is the one who creates a system where the chinovniks won’t be able to behave that way. The problem is not whether our king is good or bad. The problem is that we don’t have rule of law in our country. Thus, the problem is not whether Sargsyan is a good Prime Minister or not. The problem is whether he’ll be able to establish rule of law in our country and improve the system. To be honest, he’ll hardly wish to change anything. This way it’s easier and more pleasant. His employees are making mistakes and Sargsyan openheartedly solves those.
There is another problem here. The problem is that the majority of oppositionists also work with the same logic. It means they are trying to convince people that they’d make a very kind king. They will receive more citizens, solve more problems, etc. Of course almost everybody is speaking about “systematic reforms”. But when you are trying to understand which reforms those are, you realize that they only mean a decisive fight against corruption.
Another problem is that a considerable part of the people wishes to see a kind king more than the rule of law. All examples show that the people appreciate a good leader more than the rule of law or a democratic state. They hope that the leaders think about the concerns of the people. Pay attention to that fact that neither the constitution nor any law of Armenia says even one word about caring about the issues of average people. The laws must think about the concerns of people, and the government must function precicely within the framework of the law. The Turkish sultans, Arabic caliphs, and Russian czars were receiving people from time to time, but the overall state of the people of those countries wasn’t improving.