If we go back to the May 12 elections and remember the civic opinion, we will see that according to it the victory of Serzh Sargsyan during the upcoming presidential elections is decided. In consideration of this fact, we wander whose plans were undermined by the new developments and reality.
Certainly, the opposition has nothing to do here since it was in such situation before the parliamentary elections too. The only person, who was handed lemons after such results is Robert Kocharyan. The problem is that before the parliamentary elections he announced that no party could have majority in the new parliament and that ULP would be represented in the parliament too. After the elections, the president had to go to the APP headquarter and congratulate them on their victory. It seemed that the president was faced with a difficult situation, but certainly the president had reserve tactics too. The problem is that the previous authorities were the most passive power to say “no” to the amended constitution. It seemed that they would be against those changes since the new constitution contains provisions which are unacceptable to them. For that purpose those people, who had direct contact with Levon Ter-Petrosyan, publicly announced that Kocharyan would consider the amended constitution as new and would run for president for the 3rd term. Why is this done for? The purpose was not to let the slippery persons keeping with Kocharyan convert under the umbrella of Serzh Sargsyan. As a result the president not only could keep his power, but in addition “Prosperous Armenia” party was elected in the parliament, which mostly consists of Kocharyan’s supporters. Thus, now he has real power and can appoint any positions he wants and will place a key role during the upcoming presidential elections too. With such actions he wants to make understand that if Serzh Sargsyan doesn’t agree with the fact that he intends to become prime minister, Levon Ter-Petrosyan may become president. By the way, no prior agreements with ARP, PA and ARF will be breached if they support Kocharyan to become PM. Certainly, it doesn’t mean that despite misunderstandings with Sargsyan, Kocharyan may want Ter-Petrosyan inherit the president’s office. He will never take such risk and he needs the factor of the first president just for certain purposes.
Let’s try to understand how we could reach this point. In 1998 Kocharyan, who had been appointed by PM by Levon Ter-Petrosyan, became president. It is not hard to imagine the negative emotions in them after Kocharyan was elected president since the former president had openly said that there had been change of authorities in the country. After that, on October 27, a terror happened in the parliament, as a result of which some suspects were indirectly targeted at the president’s office. Recently Ter-Petrosyan said that just following the terror he was suggested to meet with the heads of the law enforcement bodies and try to find a solution out of that situation jointly with them. By the way, during that period it was easier to make Kocharyan resign or to keep him in power. However, the first president didn’t only join the political powers demanding the president’s resignation, but petitioned everyone to support the president. Recently he tried to find a logical explanation for such decision and said that he didn’t want the enemy to use the opportunity of instability in the country and attack. It doesn’t depend which foreign forces have organized the terror of October 27, it is impossible that they could plan the terror in a way so that it happened just at that time, would have just that outcome and the enemy would use the opportunity, would attack and have success. Furthermore, if Ter-Petrosyan decided to return to power, he could be recovered by the Constitutional Court till October 30 since he had resigned as a result of revolution. After doing so they could quickly recover their power both in the government and the parliament. How can we believe that Ter-Petrosyan prevented the enemy’s attack if it could be prevented very quickly and in consideration of the fact that his team members are announcing that are not going to win on the election day but before that too and that they will not agree with any announcements saying that Ter-Petrosyan has not been elected and that after being elected he will clean up the parliament and those who stand against they will have to drop their mandates? They are saying this in advance so that our enemy has enough time to get prepared. Furthermore, during these years our enemy has become stronger and even has become a significant regional and world factor, which is conditioned by Baku-Tbilisi-Jeyhan pipeline, the new railway and some other projects that leave Armenia aside. Besides that, the West wants to solve the problem of Kosovo’s independence and continuously states that it cannot be a precedent for other conflicts too. However, it is clear that such solution will raise activation in Armenia too. How can the issue of Karabakh be solved in such case? Is there any other way than a short-term war, during which the international powers will interfere and obligate us to make war in a situation, in which we will be after the instability following the February 19 elections, which is that we will lose Karabakh and the liberated territories. Certainly, the first president understands this, even he says that he understood it in 1999 too. This means that Levon Ter-Petrosyan is solving a simple issue, which is that there won’t be any revolution, he will not become president, but instead Kocharyan will become PM and will have strong levers and tools to the extent that he will have sufficient power and opportunities to be potential candidate to become president for third or fourth time. If Kocharyan becomes PM, Serzh Sargsyan will be a vulnerable president. Don’t forget that several moths ago Kocharyan made an equivocal statement saying that the president would not be the person who people thought would be elected. He meant Serzh Sargsyan. Which are Kocharyan’s preliminary versions which failures would make him a young pensioner and due to which pensioner Levon Ter-Petrosyan was included in the game? His candidate could be both untimely descended PM Andranik Margaryan and Vardan Oskanyan since in case they were elected Kocharyan could become PM and due to the new Constitution have real power and later be re-elected. After Margaryan’s death and seeing that Oskanyan’s version was not good Kocharyan’s plans did not come true, which was the reason why the tandem of Kocharyan and Ter-Petrosyan had to make some crucial steps in the changed situation, which wasn’t unnoticeable by the society. First, when Serzh Sargsyan was in the US with an official trip and Kocharyan was receiving the Iranian president in Armenia, everyone understood that the ARF leadership would never meet with Levon Ter-Petrosyan without the consent of Kocharyan. In addition, it was clear that Kocharyan was not campaigning in support of Sargsyan, but against Sargsyan and with his announcements he helped Ter-Petrosyan. He did that not only personally, but also with the help of the media under his umbrella and the police. However, it is clear that the plan of the first and the existing presidents is failing. It is also witnessed by the fact that the political developments are showing that during the presidential elections Ter-Petrosyan will struggle for the honored fourth place, but not the first one. In such situation it doesn’t make sense whether there will be a second round or no since the second place will be taken either by Arthur Baghdasaryan, Vahan Hovhannisyan or another candidate, and thus the core opposition will not support either of them for the purpose of struggling against the main pro-government candidate. This is the reason why Ter-Petrosyan changed his strategy and gave place to revolutionary announcements. I can assume that the team members of the first president did not know about this and now they feel like “cheated creditors”. Meanwhile I think that not all of them would agree with such adventure and in the existing situation, when the rules of the game and strategy are changing, conflicts are becoming inevitable. The problem is that everyone sees that Ter-Petrosyan, after keeping silence during Kocharyan’s office period, has spoken only close to the termination of Kocharyan’s office period and has spoken such things, which he knew and did not speak about. This means that either they have agreed to do so, or such person who knows about hose things and doesn’t speak has serious problems with moral characteristics. Here is the conclusion: if you support Ter-Petrosyan, you will leave the power with Kocharyan for more ten years. It’s your choice.