– Mr. Bagratyan, during the demonstration on April 28 you announced that the authorities are trying to attract the opposition in a swamp with their offers for dialogue. Indeed the opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosyan believes that such dialogue can cure the sick political environment. Do you agree with this opinion?
– I would like to ask you not to oppose the approaches I have and Levon Ter-Petrosyan has. The answer to your question is the following: I do not exclude the possibility of dialogue, but it should be open and visible for the public. There cannot be confidential solutions in the political sector.
– But in the reality people do not make policies openly as they believe it may harm the processes. In fact dialogue and agreements are always made behind the scenes. Later the society is informed of the results only.
– The ANC has established a forum. The forum can work with the authorities only in open conditions. Let the authorities openly announce what compromises they can make and the ANC can discuss it with people. From this prospective any dialogue that is not open can lead us nowhere. By the way, I believe such dialogue does not exist now. These are hints through third persons.
– Anyway the authorities have started fulfilling some requirements set by the opposition and this process is open.
– It is not enough. First, the authorities do not fulfill those requirements as the ANC has published 15 demands, which was adopted during the forum on March 1. If Serzh Sargsya does those requirements, it turns out that he is the authority that does what the ANC says. If so, they can govern. There are three demands that have been failed to be done.
– The ANC wants assurances that the events of March 1 will be discovered. Serzh Sargsyan has given instructions for that purpose.
– We do not want assurances; we want real action. We want to see Kocharyan questioned by the police in one or two months. We want to know who issued order to shoot. We want to see him persecuted like Kuchma and Mubarak. Ten people were killed. Someone killed them, and the only thing we have so far is their word that they will investigate one more time.
– Don’t you believe that they will discover and Serzh Sargsyan will succeed in inviting Kocharyan for questioning?
– I don’t know. Definitely he will not do it. It means that we will still continue our struggle for the power.
– The second requirement has been done and the ANC is already allowed to hold demonstrations in the Freedom square.
– But we said that we view those three demands as the first step in the general context. They said that they will do one of those three requirements. They have failed to do the other two demands; the political prisoners are not free.
– Levon Ter-Petrosyan said that he was sure that the political prisoners would be set free within one month.
– I decided to wait like a participant of the forum. That is why on April 28 I said during the demonstration that we should continue struggling for changing the power. If there is no public and open dialogue, any conversation with “if” may have bad results.
– Maybe Serzh Sargsyan will fulfill all the requirements of the Congress during the time, maybe has just started doing that.
– If the president takes the responsibility to investigate the elections of 2008, it means that he is a great president. If he does that I will be happy.
– After the recent rally of the opposition people start complaining about the Congress. People are demanding to strikes and act rapidly. Do you think people’s demands are justified?
– It is natural. People always want it to be fast. The Congress has plans too. I think that we should work this compliant out and the Congress should work in the format of a forum.
– In such situation the people, the forum, may drive the Congress in the other direction.
– The leadership of the Congress wants it to be like a forum too. We should make these forums work as it is a long time that we have transferred to forums from demonstrations.
– Do you think there is a big possibility of extraordinary elections? Even though one year has remained till the next elections, the leadership of the Congress believes there will be extraordinary elections.
– I can’t say but we should do our best to do that. First of all we have to prove that what the forum wants is extraordinary elections. There are 41 places under the majoritarian system. Oligarchs will take some of those places for sure. That is why they say that those people will not be included in the lists. They do not need to be in lists because they will get their places under the majoritarian system too because it is their neighborhood.
– The RPA representatives say that they will not be in the parliament next time, and the oligarchs say that they will not want to go to the parliament either. For example, last week Ruben Hayrapetyan announced that he did not want to be MP anymore.
– I don’t know anything about that such statement. I don’t believe them. What is the difference between them or their people?
– Parliamentary and non-parliamentary powers such as the Heritage and ARF are criticizing the ANC for initiating a dialogue with the authorities. They say that the ANC becomes like Artur Baghdasaryan, who was criticized by the ANC for cutting deals with the authorities. Do you think he critics that the Congress has failed to meet the expectations of people to act fast?
– The powers that claim to be opposition should struggle against the authorities. An opposition cannot have a goal to criticize the opposition.
– Is the efforts to ease the tension between the ANC and authorities their own initiative or there is some pressure from outside?
– I don’t know any direct influence signs from outside. Indirectly there is some pressure. Other countries have numerously announced that they would like to see cooperation.
– What is the goal of those countries? Do they want to see stability in Armenia or it is connected with the issue of Karabakh?
– Anyway, we hear announcements from the European Union that the opposition and authorities should work together to fight the problems, and we hear the same messages from the US and Russia.
– Some of the recent announcements of prime minister Tigran Sargsyan show that he would like to change the economic situation but the oligarchic system does not let it happen. He even asks for help from the society and journalists.
– He should leave, why does he stay? Does he make money being prime minister? I am saying that we should not let the national currency grow in its value. What is Tigran Sargsyan doing for that purpose? They should buy that money and increase the CB reserves. Every year 1,5 billion dollars is transferred to Armenia, and the reserves should be increased by that much money too, and the CB should refuse the help of the IMF. And this money should be invested in the economy for long-term development purposes. It will resist inflation. Now they continue keeping the value of the dram high, and the budget will fail to be fulfilled. We see that the budget is failing. They should do it instead of speaking much. Thanks to God there are economists in Armenia who make observations at the international level, but in answer to such observations they threaten.
– Are the opinions that the taxes fixed in the mineral sector are directed against Robert Kocharyan because according to various opinions the mining sector of our country belongs to the second president? Or was that merely an intention to bring this sector to the tax field as well because enormous amount of money is being lost?
– It is possible to receive an income of 450 million to 1 billion USD from that sector and input it in the state budget. Indeed Sargsyan is elected to be a president for himself and not Kocharyan. Secondly, the argument of the Congress is pretty strong, which claims that the raw material should be sold. If you are the owner of the mine it doesn’t mean that you are the owner of the land too. The land belongs to the people. Why don’t you sell it and give it our for free? At least they could lease the land. This question of ours was also asked by the World Bank? Third, during the three years Sargsyan reduced the budget by 25%, the prices grew by 30%.
– But weren’t we going through the global economic crisis?
– There is nothing like that. The world crisis lasted 6 months. There was no slump in the world. We had a 36% slump. The pension is reducing all the time. Even if it grew from 20,000 AMD to 25,000 AMD it is still low due to the high inflation. During three years the prices grew by 26%. And the minimum salary grew by 6%. It means that the share of the GDP, which the people direct, gradually decreases. The wealth of 15 families grew. Sargsyan is currently exploiting the people. Moreover, if you are reviewing the structure of the economy we are no more a democratic state or a republic. We are a bourgeois state.
– The World Bank and the other international financial structures have recently started to criticize the policy of Armenia in the economic sector. In the meantime several years ago they were welcoming that and supporting Sargsyan’s policy. What is the reason of that? Is the Armenian economy managed better now?
– They came to their right state of mind. They have realized they deal with an infertile factor. For example, the former representative of the IMF Ninke Omes was trying to persuade us that unfortunately due to the crisis Armenia will hardly have a 4,5-5% economic growth. And when he was told about our dual-digit economic slump, he started to laugh in his office. So did anyone punish Ninke Omes? I am not interested in their opinion but if those are good and are based on deep analytical facts, I might be interested. If they are holding periodic press conferences to inform Washington that they are doing those and to show that they are actually working. I am not interested in that kind of stuff.