On Sunday RA Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan personally commented on his own statement made in the NA about the “broken washboard,” which is as known was strongly slammed by RPA’s coalition partner Prosperous Armenia Party.
Prior to that, Tigran Sargsyan’s spokesman Aram Ananyan had already clarified the Prime Minister’s statement but it turns out that the clarification didn’t suffice the Prosperous Armenia. The reason, however, was not only the Prosperous Armenia but also the other coalition partner of the RPA the Legal State, whose leader Artur Baghdasarayn during the meeting with Serzh Sargsyan, complained that after the statement of Tigran Sargsyan’s spokesman the impression is that the warning was addressed to the Legal State. In order to avoid confusion and discontent within the Legal State Tigran Sargsyan decided on Sunday to give a response to his own statement, according to which the statement was addressed to the dispersed parties of the opposition and not anyway linked to the government and especially the coalition partners of the RPA. And this time he tried to quote the President in order to vindicate his own statement. We think that this move will require clarification in the near future as well. “I quoted the famous statement of the President, which related to the government’s willingness to build bridges. I think that the challenges that await in the future urge us that this cooperation is necessary, including with the opposition. If we see destructive decisions then we state that when certain people are trying to make our country go through certain turbulence then they appeared in front of the broken washboard because we have the capacity and opportunities to exclude this turbulence. We have the wish to build our future thanks to the environment of cooperation,” stated Tigran Sargsyan on Sunday. This means that every statement of the Prime Minister becomes critical for the RPA because even the partner political parties demand “clarifications.” This statement of Sargsyan was interpreted by various political parties as a threat addressed to the administration closer to elections and that both the political parties and the society should draw conclusions from. However, according to political analysts the politicians, who make such statements, even more exacerbate the tense political situation, which the government doesn’t benefit from at this stage. In this light, it is not clear why Tigran Sargsyan makes such statements in the first place and then ascribes these statements to the President. According to our RPA sources, the goal is to degrade the reputation of the RPA. Tigran Sargsyan has never become a full team member of the RPA. According to the director of the Armenian Center for Political and International Studies Manvel Sargsyan this is characteristic to authoritarian governments. “The Prime Minister’s message was addressed not so much to political parties as to the whole society. Nobody in Armenia believes any more that the country may have a legitimate government elected through a fair ballot. Therefore, political parties try to come to terms with the regime. In this context, the Premier’s words mean the following: Unless you are with us, you will end up with nothing,” Sargsyan said. He said that in any normal country a premier would be dismissed after saying such things. But in Armenia this is normal. Each second believes that it is necessary to consolidate. When speaking of this theme yesterday the head of the ARF parliamentary faction Vahan Hovhannisyan said, “I understood it as it was announced. This is not the first time that high-ranking officials of Armenia make irresponsible announcements and then need to deny it.” This sort of behavior, according to Hovhannisyan, may have 2 explanations, first, that they make such announcements in order to make scandal and the second; they are imprudent in their announcements. By this announcement, the Republican Party means “humbleness.” “In essence, a critic is regarded [by the government] as an enemy in our country,” he said. “We will not allow anyone to govern with ease while constantly committing mistakes.” “We will not let anyone in this country gently rule”, said Hovhannisyan and confirmed that if the Republican Party really had a desire to cooperate, it would do so against the membership of Azerbaijan in UN Security Council. When speaking of the February declaration of the government Hovhannisyan said, “what are we discussing now if according to this declaration there is not going to be any party competition. This is not acceptable for our party and the society. The society should break the washboard of certain people. There people in Armenia who will be willing to break things but the number of people willing to do radical actions cannot grow,” he said.