The March 17 rally of the ANC has gained a pretty large resonance among the members of the society and the political circles.
Perhaps the reason was first of all that after a three-year break the opposition finally entered the Liberty Square. The rally and the speeches of the ANC leaders also created tense and controversial moods. And finally it is impressive that each rally compared to the previous one, collects more people. And the most broadly discussed topic is the controversial expectation of the society from the ANC leadership. Perhaps the reluctance of realization of these expectations sometimes becomes a reason for criticizing the opposition. It is noteworthy that quite many people (political oriented at that) expects drastic steps from the opposition leaders and specifically from the first president of Armenia Levon Ter-Petrosyan. And right after the rally and perhaps until the next rally these themes will be discussed with the political and social sectors of the country. So they would be discussed on social networks. A part of the society has become discontent that after a three-year break Ter-Petrosyan offered the people hold the next rally on April 8 instead of encouraging people about the fact of entering the Liberty Square again and encouraging them to take more drastic steps. Then Ter-Petrosyan wished them good night and left. People are also discontent that the rallies are no held more frequently and that the opposition always gives some kind of deadlines to the government. Perhaps this step of Ter-Petrosyan as he says, his chess policy, is correct in terms of efficacy but it is not unanimously accepted by the society. And especially his thought that he doesn’t wish to use the word “struggle” and that his goals may be attained by forming partnership relations with the government, create an opinion that Ter-Petrosyan is working jointly in a dialog with the government. This becomes more apparent when after the last rallies and the demands of Ter-Petrosyan President Serzh Sargsyan held separate meetings with the executive, then with the journalists and spoke about the need of responding to the worries and concerns of the people. Most importantly he evaluated the activities of the opposition correct. So it is not excluded that the possible dialog are the agreed speeches of the first and last Presidents. Yesterday on this background the RPA politicians also expressed their views about the speeches of Ter-Petrosyan. “The tone of yesterday’s rally of the ANC was lower. If in the past the opposition was speaking with ultimatums and deadlines and demands of 15 points then this time we have noticed that the ANC chair was more modest and humble in his formulations. Moreover, he was trying to offer angles of dialog, civilized and comprehensive dialog. The government once again says that it’s ready for a normal and polite dialog and that it won’t ever abide with the ultimatums and threats. We have always gone in that direction. During the last rally the opposition suggested to negotiate on three points. We will take this into account by all means,” said the RPA spokesman Edward Sharmazanov. He says mutual concessions can be made by the authorities, which are strong, broad-minded and fond of democracy values. “However everybody must understand the necessity of only legal and constitutional political processes. Any attempt to advance with an anti-constitutional way will bring to wrong consequences,” Sharmazanov said. He says the initiative of the Armenian National Congress and the RA Police to negotiate showed the parties’ prudence and desire to avoid conflicts. “For both sides – the opposition and authorities, it is important not to gain political dividends, but to implement a stable political development,” Sharmazanov said. He says the police’s yesterday action was also a result of the RA president’s statements at the police board session. The head of the RPA faction Galust Sahakyan also positively spoke about the activities of the opposition. He said it in such a way that the former foreign affairs minister Alexander Arzumanyan thought that Sahakyan is an ANC member. Sahakyan also added that they were allowed to enter the Liberty Square because there was the chair of the Heritage party Raffi Hovhannisian on a hunger strike, which according to him doesn’t make any sense. “I thought that the scenario should have been that way because up until now we cannot assess the certainty of Raffi Hovhannisian’s hunger strike. But if he is on the strike any person has the right to approach to him and speak with him. And I think this was an occasion used by the ANC,” he said.
“The leaders of the opposition should be smart enough not to let the society achieve changes through breaking or ruining everything,” said A.Arzumanyan in answer to a journalist’s comment that the opposition calls on people to make changes but when the time comes they tell them go home. Arzumanyan says that people want to make changes as soon as possible to get rid of the authorities, but it should not be done through violence or anti-Constitutional manner. Didn’t Levon Ter-Petrosyan cheat the people in the Freedom Square when he told them to go home? “One can cheat a part of the society one time, but nobody can cheat the society or the nation. There is nobody like that anywhere in the world, and I think there are no people like that in Armenia either,” said Arzumanyan and expressed hope that till the next meeting of the ANC on April 8 there would be no political prisoners in Armenia.
To note, Levon Ter-Petrosyan explains the fact of giving a rather long time to the authorities to fulfill the opposition’s demands with the following reasoning: “We are not maximalists and we are not going to press the authorities to the wall yet”.
The opposition leader developed three demands to the authorities to be fulfilled urgently: release the political prisoners, commitment to discover the culprits of the ten victims on March 1 and allow people organize gatherings and demonstrations in the Freedom square. He believes the fulfillment of these demands will give a ground for a dialogue; otherwise they will have to “talk to the authorities with a language of ultimatums”.
Despite the fact whether there is an agreement between the authorities and opposition or no, whether they had agreed to enter the Freedom square or no, it is a fact that certain processes and changes are happening in Armenia. Even certain situations have changed already. This is evident both in the government and opposition. It would be naïve even to think that the authorities expressed a good faith to the opposition and demonstrated this tolerance to them. Of course this attitude and approach to the opposition was also due to the co-rapporterus of the PACE monitoring group, who were in Armenia at that time. Maybe also the announcements of the international institutions, including the recent announcements of the US Ambassador have changed their attitude. However, the biggest role in the change of the situation is up to the people because their complaints are growing day by day and they are demanding change from the government. Even the RPA deputy chairman Galust Sahakyan agrees with this. “Even if there are no rallies, these people demand; we can see that. Rallies can be organized with 10000 people, but there are 50000 people who complain and demand change but do not take part in rallies. We should be with the people taking care of their troubles because on the one hand everything is becoming more expensive, and on the other hand villagers do not have facilities to use on their lands. We have set goals for these problems and the authorities should work to solve these problems,” says the representative of the government.