“The logic tells us that everything will proceed in a quiet and peaceful way. There will be regular elections of parliament and the leader of these elections will be Serzh Sargsyan,” yesterday stated Online Liberals Alliance initiative coordinator, former ANC member Karapet Rubinyan. According to him the authorities will hold special elections after releasing the political prisoners. "I don’t see any signs of that. On the contrary, Levon Ter-Petrosyan announced that the release of political prisoners would ease the tension. I don’t believe Serzh Sargsyan will start to negotiate over his resignation in that situation because there are no factors for that right now. Perhaps the only factor left at this moment is the social-economic factor." Rubinyan was skeptical over the possibility for any political force to occupy the niche vacated by ANC, specifically because of people’s disappointment and fading of the wave of revolutions in Arab world. “Worsening of the social situation in the country might be the only factor to aid the radical forces in their anti-government struggle,” he said. Political dialogue between the opposition Armenian National Congress (ANC) and authorities rendered a revolution in Armenia impossible. Karapet Rubinyan says it is not right to tolerate the present government for even a single day because Armenia is becoming less and less competitive in the region. Besides, Rubinyan notes they say the situation will improve after the political prisoners are released, so he wonders why the negotiations on the resignation of government and snap elections should start if the situation improves. Rubinyan approves dialogue but supports radical posture. He noted that he has regular meetings and discussions with representatives of different parties. In particular, he has met with Raffi Hovhannisyan and other members of the Heritage party. Rubinyan says he could never join a team which supports Robert Kocharyan. “Our current miserable political field is full of gossips and conspiracy. Various meetings are taking place, during which possible developments are being discussed,” he said. “It is excluded that I will ever appear in a team where Robert Kocharyan is. That is from the science fiction.” He didn’t deny the rumors about active meetings among oppositionists, which is connected with the return of Kocharyan to politics. "I don’t think the authorities will reveal the events of March 1 and I don’t think the relations between Serzh Sargsyan and Robert Kocharyan will become so intensified that Serzh Sargsyan decides to use the revelation of the events of March 1 as a weapon. Apparently, they are partners in crime. Of course, the main culprit is Robert Kocharyan, but that doesn’t reduce Serzh Sargsyan’s role in the crime," Mr. Rubinyan said. “These meetings have not brought any results,” said Rubinyan and added that he didn’t exclude joining a political party. “I should say though that I don’t have any concrete plans with anyone right now.” Besides the Heritage, once Rubinyan “had a drink” with Dashnaks and met with his friends from the Armenian National Congress for many times. As to the reason why he left the Congress, Rubinyan says he thought that after March 1, 2008 the struggle would continue in the same way but he was surprised by the change of the ANC’s tactics at the beginning of 2011, which did not match the hard social and economic conditions and the excitement caused by the Arab revolutions. By the way, when responding to the announcement of the Heritage chairman Raffi Hovhannisyan, according to which the next president of Armenia “should have another color.” Rubinyan said that the next fourth president of Armenia should be striped. “The color should be mixture of zebra and tiger.” He tried to make his answer serious by saying that Armenia should proceed to parliamentary system of governance. “I wish that we didn’t have a candidate for the next elections or at least someone, who’d say that he’s coming to make constitutional reforms and making Armenia a parliamentary state within 2 years. I’d totally endorse such a candidate,” he said and added that the next president should be outside the triangle of the former presidents of Armenia.
