The contradictions between
Robert Kocharyan and Serj Sargsyan are getting worse. Sources close to
Kocharyan claim that at the present, the president intends on moving
those
contradictions to the confrontation level. As always, Robert Kocharyan
forms a
basis for any decision that he has to make. Rumor has it that Kocharyan
will do
that through the means of Grish Sargsyan(chief of state security of the
RA
appointed a month ago and Kocharyan’s security guard) and Vahram
Barseghyan(the
president’s chief supervisor). Sargsyan and Barseghyan have been very
active
recently. According to facts, Grisha Sargsyan expressed himself
“against” Serj
Sargsyan by making different remarks. Vahram Barseghyan’s tapings of
the
supervision of Yerevan’s transportation shows the cars of Serj
Sargsyan’s representatives and those tapings have aired on various
television
stations. Neither G. Sargsyan nor V.Barseghyan would be paid much
attention to
without an official order. As for Robert Kocharyan and Serj Sargsyan,
their
contradictions became clear to everyone as Kocharyan showed that he
does not
take Sargsyan into consideration in dealing with the political cadre
scheme.
Serj Sargsyan’s demand for holding I.Zakaryan responsible for the
defeats in
the Olympic games and turning the whole thing into a political issue
was
senseless and “provocative”. Thanks to that, one side proved the other
side’s
point of view on all of this. In addition, throughout the context of
those
contradictions, we can focus on the decision made last week by the
government
of the RA concerning the “Erebuni” airport. According to that decision,
the
airport is under the supervision of the Ministry of Defense of the RA
and has
the right to provide flights for citizens. With this the ministry is
putting an
end to the Ernekian monopoly and according to the privatization
contract signed
by the “Zvartnots” airport, there can be no other airport providing 250
kilometer flights. The oligarchs are the ones who are most worried
about the
contradictions between Kocharyan and Sargsyan because in the end, there
will be
redistributions in the economy. Whatever the case, Kocharyan wants to
solve
problems concerning the defense minister’s oligarchs using “his
methods”.
According to facts, the relations between Kocharyan and Sargsyan have
gotten so
bad that neither one wishes to have any contact with the other. Robert
Kocharyan was supposed to be in Karabagh on September the 2nd in
honor of the festival dedicated to Karabagh’s independence day, however, he
cancelled his trip after finding out that Serj Sargsyan was going to be there.
Upon arriving in Karabagh, some of Kocharyan’s bodyguards were instructed to
leave the site.
Of course, the
Kocharyan-Sargsyan confrontation can not be separate from the political arena.
The mass media is skillfully preparing the public for what will happen. To
prove this, let’s take the rumor that spread about the decision of sending
fifty Armenian soldiers to Iraq. All fingers point to the defense minister for
passing that resolution. What was surprising for many was how vice minister of
defense general Khachaturov criticized that decision and not only infringed his
military rank but also, the “pastime custom” of not criticizing Kocharyan and
Sargsyan.
The first steps taken against
that were considered important. After a couple of days, a group of NGOs announced
that they would organize demonstrations against the decision of sending
Armenian soldiers to Iraq. In other words, they were going against Serj
Sargsyan. What’s noteworthy is that until today no political force has tried to
defend that decision publicly. Moreover, the president prefers not to discuss
that topic because it aggregates the relations between him and Serj Sargsyan.
Basically, certain people are
trying to convince the Russianized Armenian society that Serj Sargsyan is
inclined towards seeking help from other countries and NATO, in contrast to
Kocharyan, who continues to consider Russia as our only strategical ally. Here, Kocharyan
has an advantage. If he decides to remove Serj Sargsyan from office or insist
on his resignation, then Kocharyan can be assured that Russia will lend a helping hand. On the other hand,
there is a chance that things may not go the way as planned.
In the end, it’s clear that
Kocharyan’s goal is not to remove Serj Sargsyan from office, but rather to turn
him into an “average minister”. Whatever may be, the “super minister’s”
reputation is melting rapidly like a snowball under the hot August sun and it
proves the old Armenian proverb of the highlands: the chevalier can not
separate three things in life-his wife, his horse and the authority.