The fall season of the National Assembly session began with the
continuous political boycott of the opposition. As they say in sports,
the ball is in the hands of the opposition and it is playing on the
coalition’s field. It’s the coalition’s turn to throw the ball back.
Meanwhile, the throw-backs are taking a while. One of the “key”
discussions of the agenda had to be the discussion concerning the
absences of the 24 opposition deputies who had organized the boycott
against the National Assembly. However, speaker of the National
Assembly Artur Baghdasaryan made it clear that the issue would be
discussed neither now nor in the next couple of days. It is possible
that that discussion will be postponed so long that it gets moved to
October. This is perceptible. It is very necessary for the coalition to
win time. The issue concerning Armenia will be discussed during the
European Union convention in October. This means that the authorities
have to avoid any inter-political problems. While all of this is going
on, the issue of depriving the deputies of their mandates has many
surprises in store.
But what is the opposition doing at the present?
The beginning of fall was marked with the “nice” political remarks made
by leader of the Azgayin Miabanutyun (National Unity-NU) political
party Artashes Geghamyan. He had threatened the authorities by claiming
that there will be “surprises”. The leader of the political party did
not present a list or anything. It’s notable that the Azgayin
Miabanutyun(National Unity-NU) is slowly yet surely changing its
strategic plans. In order for one to be convinced, he or she must pay
close attention to what Geghamyan has been saying during his interviews
where he clearly states his goal: “The goal is not to remove Robert
Kocharyan or Serj Sargsyan, but rather to establish democracy through
the efforts of Kocharyan.” We admit, this really is a “surprise” not
for the authorities, but for the opposition. There are predictions of
development of new stages for the political party since it stands back
from change of rule. Also, the fact that there are rumors spreading
that the NU still has to affirm if there will be a collaboration with
the “Artarutyun” union. Let’s just wait for the affirmations.
As for the “Artarutyun” (Justice) union, the latter continues taking
its steps carefully. Secretary of the union V. Dallakyan announced:
“Don’t expect any surprises or a revolution from us”. Instead of that,
the union will come up with new strategies. But during the session in
September when the new strategic plan was supposed to be announced to
the public, it turned out that the leaders of the union don’t have
anything new to present to neither the public nor themselves.
In addition, there were some predictions that the “Artarutyun”
(Justice) union will once again start the process of splitting during
the fall. Of course, these predictions were based on how discontent the
union members were and the disagreements between each other. Many think
that a basis for the split may be the problem of differing cosmopolitan
views. The thing is that until today, there have not been any serious
discussions about the “Artarutyun”(Justice) union’s foreign politics.
In that case, how can there even be any discussion about a foreign
politics doctrine? There are no final resolutions regarding the
Karabagh conflict, the recognition of the Armenian genocide or
Armenia-Turkey relations. It turns out that the union avoids discussing
the issues most important for the country in order to not let the
public know about what’s going on inside the union. Even president of
the Constitutional Rights Union Hrant Khachaturyan said: “We don’t
discuss any issues which may cause contradictions.” As for the
formation of any new ideology or collaboration with other political
forces, even though president of the National Popular Union Vazgen
Manukyan has emphasized the routes needed to be taken for forming a new
ideology during some of his interviews, according to director of news
agencies Ruzan Khachaturyan, there will be no discussion concerning the
collaboration between the political forces during the congress session
on September 17. According to president of the Constitutional Rights
Union Hrant Khachaturyan: “We will only emphasize what has already been
emphasized.” The only change will be that the NGOs and intellectual
figures of society will also participate in the conference.