Armenian press is full of articles about the collapse of Rule of Law and its former members that left the party. Even the national television news broadcast spoke with irony about these businessmen. As for journalists, they say that rats leave the ship first. It is probably not wrong to use such terms concerning some politicians (Sergo Yeritsyan and friends). Instead of this I think it is not right to say the same for businessmen. The Armenian business environment has certain traditions that should be analyzed. Armenian businessmen have always tried to insure their businesses in the environment of our misbalanced business field. I don’t mean the classic definition of insurance business because it doesn’t exist in our country. Accordingly businessmen have found substitutes for these insurance guarantees. I mean political parties. Before, parliamentary election parties needed financial support. This is the moment when businessmen decide to join them and by sponsoring them, they get places in the parliament. This process benefits both sides. The parties are getting the relevant financial support they need and the businessmen are getting places in the parliament and certain documents, which serve as guarantees for their businesses. Before parliamentary elections businessmen are faced with a choice as to which party to join in order to be able to get this document. As a rule, those parties that have provided the necessary number of people to appear in the parliament, have a list of businessmen members. Accordingly businessmen have to make a choice whether to join the small parties and be represented in the top of their lists or to join big parties and be represented in the lowest part of their lists. This principle hasn’t changed during the last ten years. All big parties had businessmen representatives supporting them. There have been also cases when big parties suddenly lost their reputation. In this case businessmen had to drop their memberships and their “documents of guarantee” and look for new ones. For instance let’s go back to 1997, when overnight some of the Armenian Movement Party members dropped their memberships and joined the “Erkrapah” (Land Defenders’ Union) [Hermine Naghdalyan and friends]. The same thing is happening to the Rule of Law now. I think we shouldn’t blame businessmen in moving from one power to another. Businessmen don’t have their own political points and ideology. They classify parties in two groups: strong parties and weak parties. Several months ago, when the Rule of Law couldn’t protect Gagik Avetyan, its businessmen members understood that their “guarantee documents” were no longer in effect. At first they dropped their memberships and later they are going to look for new ones. As for the parliamentary governmental powers, they are going to be very successful in the near future. One year before the elections a huge number of businessmen will try to join them. The press only mentions the names of 11 people. But besides these MPs there are many other people who own small and medium businesses that used to work with help from the Rule of Law.
