Yesterday LS chairman Artur Baghdasaryan organized a press conference in order, as he said, to inform good news, which is that the Legal State party has become a member of one of the biggest world party unions, the Christian-Democratic and People’s Parties international.
Baghdasaryan says that their party has a voting right within the mentioned union, which is good not only for the LS, but also for Armenia generally because the union has representatives in all organizations where issues of world importance are discussed. Journalists were interested in inner political issues more, which Mr. Baghdasaryan did not like at all.
One of such bad questions concerned the disappointment of those voters, who had voted for Artur Baghdasaryan. In answer to this question Mr. Baghdasaryan said that such disappointment is not so big, which has been proven by a research recently published by Heghine Bisharyan. To note, according to Heghine Bisharyan, they have questioned about 250 thousand families. Some people say it is impossible to conduct such survey within 10 days. Baghdasaryan says that they have conducted such survey by using new technologies of communicating with voters. He says they were able to use such technologies (or magic stick) due to their cooperation with American organization NDI. It would be better to organize such survey before becoming a member of the coalition, otherwise it reminds about a cartoon hero penguin, which says the following: “Firstly I am doing all what I want, then I am asking for permission after doing it. It is better.”
Journalists also asked questions about “treason” on his part, specifically they asked how it can happen that one year ago the president said that what Artur Baghdasaryan had done was “treason” and now the Legal State party is a part of that government. “Life has proven that such announcements were not true,” said the LS chairman. We are living in a very strange country and the president can say things that are not true at all. It is also strange that in the past people used to trust Artur Baghdasaryan, but now they have found at least one point, where they can agree with Robert Kocharyan. Artur Baghdasaryan reminded about the fact that worse things had been told about Ter-Petrosyan to the extent that he was called a traitor, Turkey’s agent, etc. We could agree with such comparison if Ter-Petrosyan joined these authorities as well.
Isn’t it strange that in the past they used to criticize the authorities, accuse them in violations and say that it was impossible to work with them, and now they are ready to work with them with great pleasure? It turns out that it is not strange at all. Artur Baghdasaryan said that he had resigned from the speaker’s position himself by saying that it was an unprecedented case. Now he doesn’t see any problems in being involved in the new quadrilateral coalition. Even for comparison he said that at that time the coalition consisted of three political powers and plus president Kocharyan, and now it consists of four political powers, which is almost the same thing. “After the new president enters into office there will be huge reformations in the political and social fields,” he said. The LS chairman says this is the reason why they have decided to cooperate with the authorities. “We have joined the authorities for the purpose of making reformations,” he said and assured that those people who had chosen their program, voted for their platform and decisiveness to undertake reformations would see their plans come true.
Concerning the fact that people are accusing Baghdasaryan in being guilty of the March 1 events as well he said that it was the fault of those political powers, which organized those rallies and “kept those people in the Liberty square for nine days without any plan”. It is strange that when Heghine Bisharyan came up with a speech at the rally of Ter-Petrosyan’s supporters their party did not say anything about the failures of Ter-Petrosyan’s movement.
The most interesting part of the press conference concerned the positions to be occupied by the Legal State party. Artur Baghdasaryan announced that the coalition appointments have not been discussed so far and will be discussed only after the new president takes the office. “There have been no formal discussions, either in a bilateral or quadrilateral format, concerning the appointments in the National Assembly or the government,” Baghdasaryan said. One thing is clear that Heghine Bisharyan will not become a vice speaker. “It is not true,” Baghdasaryan said concerning such possibility. He said that it is a positive thing that upon signing the coalition agreement they did not discuss any appointment policies as they have prioritized to agree upon political issues, goals and priorities and to specify such priorities but not appointments in the coalition memorandum. It sounds pretty good and we could be proud of our officials’ strong attitude toward the best interests of the state and the nation if we were not aware of the real situation. As for the real situation, usually such agreements are reached as a result of negotiations or “bazaars”. And the purpose of such “bazaars” is not aimed at finding political best solutions, but at getting portfolios. In this case it turns out that they have agreed without any preliminary discussions on appointments. In other words, it is like signing a contract without clarifying the terms and conditions of the contract. Usually such things don’t happen in politics because people are afraid of being cheated.
Now let’s see how Artur Baghdasaryan imagines the future prime minister can be. He thinks that the new PM should be respected, politically experienced, informed about the political field in the country and have rich experience in cooperation with international financial organizations. It is clear that in case of such strict standards Armenia will stay without a prime minister.