When Serzh Sargsyan was elected president of the Republic of Armenia there were only a few people, who believed that positive changes could take place in the country. The grounds of skepticism are evident: Sargsyan has always been in the high echelon of power and virtually all the significant processes took place in his presence – both the negative and the positive ones. Moreover, if we notice, the latter is the only politician, who has never been unemployed during the whole modern history of Armenia. Now a quite interesting process is taking place in Armenia. On one hand the government in the person of Serzh Sargsyan is trying to implement key reforms in the country to improve the life and by doing so is meeting numerous obstacles. On the other hand, the environment in the country remains tense especially having the upcoming June 20 rally ahead. Up until recently everybody was sure that Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan are a single team and they were sure that the success of either of them is connected with each other. Let us not speak about the objectivity of this claim. It is a separate topic of discussion. The problem is that this conviction has been so wide-spread among people. Thus people think that nothing is changed in this country and that the same person is on power – the government is reproduced. The mid-rank statesmen were confident if Sargsyan comes to power they will be able to conduct their corrupt and shady activity on behalf of their prosperity. They knew that no drastic changes would take place. The only problem and peril of this group of people was the activation of the opposition and the threat of government change. Thus, the ones, who already have learned how to “feed” themselves by being nice to the Kocharyan government, were sure that they wouldn’t have a problem during Sargsyan’s presidency. It is natural that the activation of the opposition would be extremely scary for them. They had the need to maintain the same sources of “nutrition” by reflex. As of the opposition, they also knew that Sargsyan’s victory wouldn’t change much in the country because he is the heir of Kocharyan’s power. That emphasized the importance of their movement even more. All of them made the wrong bet. In our country serious and actual changes took place. It is another issue to discuss the consistency of these changes, whether these changes are just imitation or institutional reforms. By God’s will these reforms will be continuous and consistent because the desire of every single average citizen is to live in a normal country. Of course, only time will show this. As of this moment we really have a very interesting situation in Armenia. The thing is that these reforms related to the most corrupt state circles of the country – the customs and tax bodies. Now those reforms are moved to large businesses, which function in the shade. This has created certain fury among the officials of the mentioned sectors and the major businessmen. The long lasting corrupt link that existed between the government and businesses turned into some model, which brought profits to both the businessmen and the government. The corrupt statesmen were receiving bribes and the oligarchs were happy owning monopolies and receiving super incomes. Now all this seems to be at the abyss of destruction. It is quite natural that the threat of getting deprived of super incomes will create large panic among these circles. And the continuity of this process is full of contradictions and obstacles for them. In the aspect of the opposition the bets were wrong as well. The government turned out to be seriously inclined to conduct effective and serious reforms in the country. In the event of the continuity of reforms the results will become more tangible and visible during the upcoming months. Many things are pretty obvious now too but I repeat that in order to see their depth and the actual result time is needed. Under these circumstances certain problems are created for the opposition. The problem is that the opposition, which strives for power, claims to destroy the current corrupt system, which was quite well accepted by the population because everyone knew that the corrupt system wouldn’t take this nation anywhere good. But it turns out that the government itself has started to destroy the corrupt system or at least has started to speak that it is going to undertake certain steps in this direction. To a certain extent, this fact shuffles the cards of the opposition because the more tangible the process becomes the more difficult will it become for the opposition to claim the necessity of their movement. This could even more irritate the opposition and instigate to more radical attempts. But the reality as I mentioned is that the positive reforms are accepted with criticism not only by the radical opposition but also the governmental oligarchic circles. Therefore, today no matter how paradoxical the situation is there are two centers of power in the country, the interests of which can match despite their ideological differences and can form an alliance against the government. There is a little chance for this but even previous enemies ally for a common goal. We are in a period of transformation. We either go back and live the way we were or give an opportunity to the government to implement its plans and put the country on the right rails despite the growing opposition on part of both the radical oppositionists and the discontent businessmen.
