Heated Autumn: Aggravations between authority members

22/07/2005 Armen BAGHDASARYAN

A change of events took place in the heated political season of autumn,
in contrast to what many people thought. The political situation this
autumn is indeed heated up, however, the struggle is not between
authorities and the opposition, but rather between authority members
themselves. The two “fronts” are out in the open. On one hand you have
the issue of depriving the parliamentary deputies of their deputy
mandates, and on the other hand the issue concerning the #44 voting
poll in Yeghvard. What’s noteworthy is that Artur Baghdasaryan doubts
any form of cooperation between the authority “fronts”.

But what’s going on? Why is Artur Baghdasaryan, who is considered to be
“the youngest of the most successful youth” showing signs of rebellion?
Is his side strong enough to resist the president’s command?

The “Orinats Yerkir” (Lawful land) political party’s orientation
towards the deprivation of the opposition’s deputy mandates is
self-explanatory. First of all, Artur Baghdasaryan finds it necessary
to present himself in public as a defender of democracy, and secondly,
by leaving the parliament without the opposition, Kocharyan will be
forced to eliminate or schedule new elections, which is what the
“Azgayin Miabanutyun (National Unity) political party has in mind.
However, in the case of new elections, “Orinats Yerkir”(Lawful land)
does not agree with the idea of depriving the opposition of their
deputy mandates.

But a couple of days ago, something interesting happened: two deputy
members of the “Orinats Yerkir”(Lawful Land) who had previously
remained neutral for the unexcused absences of the opposition deputies,
suddenly changed their minds the following day, “regretting what they
had done”. They had stated that there had been a misunderstanding and
that they are in favor. Of course, nobody can find out for sure if
there was a misunderstanding. But it is a fact that that
“misunderstanding” had upset the president and the republicans.
Whatever the case, it is also a fact that the two members of “Orinats
Yerkir” (Lawful Land), don’t think that their “boss” can resist Robert
Kocharyan in this phase.

As for the second “front”(Yeghvard), Kocharyan simply decided to
compensate the “Orinats Yerkir” (Lawful Land) for “revealing the
misunderstandings”. In addition, the mass media wrote that the
president has warned the Supreme Court judge of the RA Aghvan Hovsepyan
to not get involved in the Yeghvard elections. This means that the
number of deputy members of the “Orinats Yerkir” political party will
increase by one. According to political observers, Aghvan Hovsepyan
will not be left empty-handed and if the opposition deputies get
deprived of their deputy mandates, then the court will take matters
into its own hands.

The interesting thing is that while all of this is going on, there is a
shift taking place in levels of the opposition. The opposition is
trying to represent itself with a “wide format”, but in the end all it
does is get narrow. Of course, Arshak Sadoyan is forming a “political
force” but there is no agreement between opposition members regarding
this issue. It turns out that both sides can’t resolve anything, for
example, the question of the force. It’s a fact that the only thing
clear is the “Azgayin Miabanutyun” (National Unity) political party’s
plans. They think that it is necessary to convince Kocharyan to help
the country get out of this situation. There is only one problem with
this plan: Kocharyan might disagree. But so what? There is nothing
perfect in this world.

The most interesting is that all of this is going on while both the
Karabagh conflict settlement and democracy in Armenia are being
discussed in the Strasburg convention. One gets the impression that
everyone is waiting for the final outcome of that meeting so that they
can plan their future.