Despite the assurances ofpolitial powers and experts that the authorities will not establish a commission for developing dialogue with the opposition, on July 9 the president’s spokesman Armen Arzumanyan announced that an ad hoc would be formed of the coalition powers for the purpose of having dialogue with the ANC, and it would be possible to organize the first discussion of the dialogue in the upcoming ten days.
The coalition group has included two representatives from each coalition power. The ones to negotiate with the ANC on part of the RPA will be the head of the NA standing committee on state and legal affairs Davit Harutyunyan and the head of the standing committee on budget affairs Gagik Minasyan, and from the PA – the head of the EU integration affairs Naira Zohrabyan and deputy chairman Vardan Postanjyan. The ones to represent the Legal State Party will be the party deputy chairman Mher Shahgeldyan and the head of the NA standing committee on agricutlure and environmental protection Khachik Harutyunyan. According to our sources of information, despite the wish of Artur Baghdasaryan to include the head of the LS faction representative Heghine Bisharyan in the ad hoc, she said that the ANC people hate her and may hurt her. Thus, in order to save Bisharyan from the attacks on part of the ANC, the LS people have decided to nominate Mher Shahgeldyan. The ANC established the commission in the beginning of June and the group is represented by ANC coordinator Levon Zurabyan, member of the ANC economic committee Vahagn Khachatryan, ANC board deputy chairman Samvel Abrahamyan and ADP board secretary Felix Khachatryan. The head of the group from the ANC is Levon Zurabyan, and according to our sources of information the head of the coalition’s group is going to be Davit Hrautyunyan.
According to our ifnormation, the coalition delegation has been formed according to the following principle: one representative on political issues from each power, and one representative on economic and social issues. However, even in case of involving representatives on political issues the authorities refuse the possibility that they may decide any issue concerning by-elections. In naswer to question what the next steps for the purposes of developing dialogue with the non-parliamentary political powers will be Armen Arzumanyan said, ”On June 17 the RA president clearly said that if the ANC really wants to continue the dialogue on other issues rather than one issue only and for the purpose of supporting the development policy of the country, external and domestic policy, the coalition partners may sit at the same table with them and discuss those issues.” On June 30 Levon Ter-Petrosyan in fact confirmed this offer and said that he agreed for dialogue but not at the level of lower officials but first and second decision-makers and on the topics of the most important issues. We were informed by our sources of information from the authorities that from the very beginning they would exclude the possibility of any discussions on the issue of by-elections. Based on the composition of the delegations, we may assume that the ad hocs will have limited topics and opportunities subject to dialogue. According to our information, the coalition ad hoc is keen to discussing general strategic issues such as law amendments and reforms only. The representattives of the pro-government ad hoc say that they will discuss exclusively issues concerning general strategic policies. ”All issues concerning ordinary and extraordinary elections must be discussed with the NA speaker but not the ad hoc,” said G. Minasyan and added that the speaker was not included in the ad hoc.
It is also very important to know what the mandate of the delegation established for the purpose of dialogue will be. In other words, it must be made clear whether there will be any mechanism of fulllfillment or implementation of their decisions or no. The two groups will be able to meet in a while because most of the members of the ad hoc are in vacation now. Gagik Minasyan will be visiting Germany on July 11-19, and Khachik Harutyunyan is in Brussels now. We asked PA representative Naira Zohrabyan about the format of the negotiations but she said that she did not know anything yet. During a press-conference Heghine Bisharyan from the LS said that they knew the ways how to negotiate and reminded abut their experience in 2008. At that time they needed only ten minutes to convince the LS that electoral violations would not have a significant impact and they had to join the coalition. ”We know the prce of dialogue and once we already talked to the president and made a decision not to let a civic war happen in the country,” said Bisharyan and added that the coalition had done their best to provide harmony of the format of the negotiations.
As the representatives of both parties say, everything will be clear after the first meeting of the groups. They will find out the answers to questions such as the agenda, the format and the goals of the dialogue, and whether it was postponed on purpose or…