The changes that are happening now in the political field, certainly, have the same implication, which is the upcoming presidential elections; now the political parties are in the process of forming small “blocs” of parties for the purpose of getting as more dividends during the elections as possible. Certainly, we don’t mean running for president, but arranging “some small” deals in the flow of that process. At least, the bigger a group is, the more it will get from the future authorities. As for the process of elections, it is soon yet to speak about it. At least everything depends on the fact whether Levon Ter-Petrosyan will run or not. If he runs, there will be a quite different situation in the political field, and if he does not, new “blocs” and such “formats” will be created within the opposition. As for the answer to this “if”, it will be clear in a couple of months.
Now let’s discuss the content of the elections. The first priority issue for Armenia is the Karabakh conflict settlement issue, and, to tell frankly, Armenia is as much important to the external world as a party of a pending conflict. You might have noticed that the international media is covering Armenia mostly in the context of Karabakh conflict. Thus, the priority issue of these elections will be Armenia’s stance concerning this issue and which direction our country will chose in the tenure of the new president.
There aren’t many alternatives. There are only two versions.
First: Armenia is not making any essential compromises connected with the conflict of Karabakh, is delaying the process of negotiations and is maintaining status-quo. Certainly, it is a good method, however, provided that all the supplementary programs shall be realized. In particular, they should “mobilize all the national potential”, create strongly competent economy, cut off corruption, create adequate conditions so that each Armenian family gives birth to four children, later there will be a need to explore mines of metal and found several factories to produce tanks, later there will be a need to change the foreign trade balance of Armenia to be positive (in order to be able to keep the army in conditions being the strongest in the region), etc. There is no irony in these words. These are really necessary factors, in the absence of which it is nonsense and very dangerous to keep “the policy of status quo”.
Second version: Armenia is making painful compromises in the settlement of Karabakh conflict, is developing relations with its neighbors and is becoming an ordinary country that “has been forgotten by the international media”. Certainly, this is a bad version. Why? Because we have to make painful compromises.
However, this is not the biggest problem. In fact, the biggest problem is that Armenia has to make a choice between these two ways and move forward through either of them, indeed it hasn’t chosen any of them yet. Certainly, we are not making any compromises and are proud to be able to maintain status quo, however, we don’t do any “supplementary efforts”. Particularly, we are not fighting corruption (notwithstanding, it is growing), we are not making the foreign trade balance positive (notwithstanding, the negative balance is growing), the economy is not becoming more competitive, we are not founding factories for producing tanks (the relations between Armenia and Russia are getting worse day by day), and the population number is not growing.
Generally, the problem is that which one of these two versions we may chose. The problem is that we have to do something by all means. If a hunter is following an ostrich, the ostrich has to either escape or turn back and attack the hunter. Anyway, hiding the head in the ground is the worst choice among all that is possible to do.