-Mr. Sargsyan, what can you say about the whole process of passing constitutional amendments? What is your opinion about the draft?
-First and foremost, the referendum for the constitutional amendments is based on illegalities. I don’t mean the Kocharyan’s illegitimacy, which is so evident, and the National Assembly’s lack of legitimacy. Some can even debate about this. I am talking about subjective arguments that come up and can not be debated on. Let’s take for example the following: the “constitutional amendments draft” put up for the referendum sets limitations on the rights of the individual and the citizen-rights which can not be violated in the existing constitution. The “Law about Referendums” forbids the draft which sets limits on citizens’ rights to be put up for a referendum. Besides that, the law demands that television networks must provide air time for propagandists before spreading the propaganda and must announce that publicly. No television network has done this-not to mention the many violations made during the process of propaganda and the illegalities.
As a historian, I must say one thing: if we compare this constitutional draft with the existing Constitution, then the future historian can claim that Armenian authorities lived through degradation for 10 years starting from 1995-2005. We can make that conclusion based on the many contradictions, absurdities, illogical statements, lingual and grammatical errors made in the “draft”. However, not one person has been able to point out the errors in the constitution for the past ten years.
-The “yes” propagandists claim that the existing Constitution is old. In addition, they state that the one of the main obstacles for the country’s development is in fact the existing Constitution.
They are lying. If that is true, let them bring up an example which will prove what they are saying. They have not done that until now.
-The main topic is dual citizenship and there are contradicting sides. What danger do you see in that?
I must say that this is something from the past and it comes from the period, when we just had citizenship and not an institute for citizenship. Dual citizenship means to be able to become citizens of other countries. This is something which is not encouraged in the world and other countries today are trying to set limits on that and getting rid of it. True, dual citizenship is not dangerous for large and developed countries, but it is an extra burden. For us Armenians, due to the fact that we live in a small country and are not that developed, this is dangerous in today’s conditions. As a matter of fact, I wrote a huge article about this nearly 10 days ago. Nobody has proven me wrong until now. As for the future historian, although he may have doubts, however, he can say that the Armenian authorities took the course of destructing the base of the country either on purpose or without understanding after the first 15 years of independence; the first argument which the historian will bring up is dual citizenship.
-It is clear that the present day Armenian authorities are doing everything they can to pass the constitutional amendments. In your opinion, why are they so interested? What will the authorities get out of passing the constitutional amendments?
-If they are doing everything they can to pass the amendments, this means that they have calculated what large profits that they will get out of it. Of course, they don’t talk about the “large profits”. They say, for example, that the amendments will strengthen democracy. It is obvious that they are lying. How can you believe something like that when they try to “strengthen democracy” with the draft that they are trying to pass by violating all democratic norms, depriving people of their right to express themselves and violate all kinds of laws? The authorities can not establish democracy, but rather strengthen dictatorship. The first sign of dictatorship is the authorities’ strive to stay in the political field eternally and that is equal to eliminating democracy. So, that “large profit” is none other than solving the issue concerning the future authorities. I am certain that Kocharyan’s goal is to be nominated for the next presidential elections by bringing up these amendments as a “basis”. In the worse case scenario, he can appoint someone from the authorities.
-The opposition has declared that it will boycott the referendum. What do you think about that? In your opinion, what kind of strategy must the opposition take in order to accomplish its goal?
The opposition, conscientiously or unconscientiously, made many compromises. The opposition had all the reasons for declaring a total boycott. Those reasons were based on the deficit of the authorities’ legitimacy, their illegitimate acts and especially the humiliating documents that they presented. But the opposition could not take any more of this and deprived them of their opportunity to propagandize and debate as foreseen by the law.
Boycott is a major resource. It is ten times more effective than propagandizing “no”. The “no” propaganda is fatal. The popular boycott is a big blow to the administrative team, and that team can get a brain tumor from that. This is not hard to see based on the reaction of the authorities. I am sure that voter participation will not exceed the 10-12% percentage. We only have to register that through the means of observers. If we don’t do that, then that will be instilled in the minds of people, something which is more important.
-In that case, do you think that a revolution is possible in Armenia, especially if we take into consideration the fact that recently we can see a series of “colorful revolutions” in the CIS countries?
Opportunities are unlimited in nature. But that depends on both how the authorities are, and the opportunities of the opposition. Starting a revolution is a long road, but people take that road when dictatorship becomes a burden.