According to an agreement reached in the first round of Armenian National Congress (ANC)-authorities dialogue, the heads of the respective delegations, Levon Zurabyan and Davit Harutyunyan, met yesterday to discuss the place, time, conditions and organizational issues for the next meeting. According to an agreement reached at that meeting, the next negotiations will be held at the Government Reception Building. In a word, the dialog is proceeding in an environment of swiftness and “mutual agreement.” This is more than we could have imagined. In the meantime, a number of governmental politicians, including the members of the negotiation delegation do not exclude anything and even the possibility of snap elections. Moreover, any such statement is considered by the ANC as another step to “victory.” It shouldn’t be excluded that the government may agree to hold snap elections. But there is a very important matter here. As a result of what this decision was made and what will be the outcome of snap elections? The response to this question was in fact given by Davit Harutyunyan in his statement made right after the first meeting with the opposition. “Regardless of the shape of the elections – ordinary or extraordinary, the healing of the political situation is one of the key issues. Not all the matters are regulated based on the law. There are questions which are taken care of as a result of agreement, joint statements and most importantly open statements, a part of which may also become other players of the political field,” said Harutyunyan. He reiterated the same thought on the next days during his interviews. The problem is not what Harutyunyan says is nonsense and that the things he pointed out are regulated by the Constitution. In fact what he says is what the opposition and government have been claiming since the launch of the dialog. And that is the deal that the opposition and government may cut as a result of the dialog. There is no other matter that the authorities can come to an agreement with the same logic as Harutyunyan brought up. Let us mention that during the past week none of the ANC members slammed the last statement of Harutyunyan by labeling it unconstitutional. And some people were thinking (or still are thinking) that the goal of the ANC is not to reach a consensus with the government outside the frames of the law but regulation of all matters based on the rule of law.
