– What do you think about the decision of Rule of Law MPs to leave the party?
– Arthur Baghdasaryan is not surrounded by people who want to become part of the opposition, because they don’t want to take that difficult path. This was the same reason why they joined him in the first place. In fact, this party doesn’t have a good team; it was established through applying administrative resources and it’s phony. For instance, at the time Arthur Baghdasaryan had good ties with Armen Yeritsyan and Serge Sargsyan. These kinds of parties, which don’t have a common ideology, collapse sooner or later; the reason for forming such parties is to be closer to the government. And now they are forced out of their way and are on the way to the opposition, but this is out of their interests.
– Do you mean that these MPs think that they were cheated?
– Now these people must make a choice. These people joined the Rule of Law knowing that it was a part of the government and had an opportunity to take power from the current authorities. And now they are in a bad situation and they are all trying to secure their places in the government and do their best to stay as close to the authorities as they can.
– Since there is no information concerning Arthur Baghdasaryan’s resignation from his position yet, he is still a part of the government. Don’t you think this definition is baseless?
– No, Arthur Baghdasaryan was simply the one who had serious political losses. This is not his first loss in politics. His first failure was two years ago when he couldn’t provide a necessary number of votes to organize a hearing on credit reimbursement issue after I had collected 66 signatures. In spite of the fact that he had given his signature too and was working with us, he still couldn’t organize it the way that he was supposed to do, being the NA speaker. He had his second failure last year. At the time, the parliament was proposing hearings on the same issue. He could collect only six votes from his faction, while there were 21 Rule of Law MPs in that faction. At that time I said that the Rule of Law would break-up soon because Arthur Baghdasaryan had only six followers in his own party. The issue of credit reimbursement was a key issue for their party. They have been discussing this issue since their foundation in 1995. This is their main slogan and beneficial political factor. And this fact showed that their party had serious problems and Arthur Baghdasaryan would become a minority in his own party soon.
– Will the coalition take steps to replace its partner or not?
– This is not the main goal they want to reach, because they could do that during the recent hearings too. They could at least provide necessary votes with the help of the People’s Deputy faction against the speaker. This must be only a political action. This was not the main goal of the coalition. The coalition was surprised when I made a speech criticizing A. Baghdasaryan in the parliament. They hoped I would require resignation from Arthur Baghdasaryan, which would give them an opportunity to join me and go against him as well. As a result of this they hoped that Arthur Baghdasaryan would apologize and later they would forgive him, thus strengthening the coalition. This was their scenario, but I don’t play their scenario, I play my own scenario.
– What kind of scenario is the coalition playing now that you don’t want to join them?
– Now they are playing another scenario, because Arthur Baghdasaryan doesn’t play a serious role already. I asked him a similar critical question, and he had to reveal his secrets and lost his reputation. In fact when making an announcement saying that if there were serious conflicts, the Rule of Law could leave the coalition Arthur Baghdasaryan meant that “they didn’t have to make the ARF and Republicans sure that it was worth letting them stay with them, but the only one that had reasons to ask that were the ARF members and Republicans, and in fact he meant that these other two parties had to ask them to stick with them”.
– You said that before the Rule of Law used to be backed by A.Eritsyan and S.Sargsyan. What about now? Doesn’t S. Sargsyan back A.Baghdasaryan any more?
– It is said that Arthur Baghdasaryan is backed by the West and he is seriously supported by them to come to power. I don’t think the West considers him a competent politician and trusts him. If they did so, Arthur Baghdasaryan would behave himself more confidently. But please note that his behavior doesn’t say anything about that. The Rule of Law wants to show that it will be the next one to get power and are the main power to be represented. But I don’t think so; the West likes more confident people. I think that Arthur Baghdasaryan fell into such a bad situation due to the fact that he is ambitious and is not able to cover his ambitions and expectations. Please note that the reason of the spring activation was not the oppositional visits to the regions, but the visits of Arthur Baghdasaryan. Just after the elections Arthur Baghdasaryan installed boxes in different communities of Marzes, where people could cast their complaints and other letters. In fact he also took some responsibilities of executive power on himself.
– What will happen to the Rule of Law if its members continue dropping their memberships?
– This is not the first case in the history of the parliament. This scenario is very much like the one Armen Khachatryan played in 2000. He will just become a political figure like Armen Khachatryan. He had fallen into a very bad situation and fulfilled his duties being criticized all the time.
– Do you think Arthur Baghdasaryan will be faced with the same situation?
– Arthur Baghdasaryan has to make a choice now: either to survive in his position in such bad conditions or act. I mean he should either resign or change his political approach. In this case he will not be successful either because he will have to compete with oppositional politicians who are in competition too. As for the opposition, they will reject Arthur Baghdasaryan and will remind him many things. For instance they will remind him that two years ago in April they were attacked near the parliament. This means that Arthur Baghdasaryan has two alternatives, both of which are bad for him. In both cases he will have losses and will have risks. Of course it is very bad for him to stay in the coalition because if he stays he will be criticized all the time and will become a mummy in politics. Otherwise he will enter a risk zone, where he is very vulnerable and incompetent. But if we compare the second option with the first one, the second one is better for him.