The leader of the Armenian National Congress, Levon Ter-Petrosyan dedicated a large part of his speech at a recent demonstration to Prosperous Armenia party. The ANC leader spoke about the relations with the PA and the role of that party in the political sector of Armenia, as well as possible cooperation with other parties.
From this point of view the ANC leader believes the PA’s role is very important. His words create an impression that it depends on the PA what the other political parties will be doing in the future. Will the PA serve for the president or will join other political parties, thus changing the balance in the political sector? If the PA agrees to endorse Serzh Sargsyan, it will be the end of the PA being a political factor. The first president’s words about the PA have the goal to keep that party from being the loyalist of the incumbent president and serving for his interests, and push it to the opposition sector, which in fact the PA does not want to do. Generally it seems there is a competition between the RPA and ANC to attract that party. Levon Ter-Petrosyan continues to separate the PA from Robert Kocharyan. He believes that those who do not agree with this are trying to frighten people. “To put everything aside, the attempts to frighten people with the return of Kocharyan has one goal, which is strengthening the positions of Serzh Sargsyan as the least of the two evils. But in fact it is not realistic as Kocharyan is under the heavy load of the murders and terror of October 27 and March 1 and is the most frightened man in Armenia,” said Levon Ter-Petrosyan.
“Media sources that are calling themselves independent, as well as certain powers separated from the ANC have been struggling since October of last year against the possibility of the PA to become opposition and in order to fail the PA’s cooperation with other powers, and the ANC specifically. The goal is pushing the PA back into the hands of Serzh Sargsyan,” said Levon Ter-Petrosyan, meaning the intimidation against Vartan Oskanyan and the criminal case instituted against his Civilitas foundation. Why is the government intimidating on the PA? The NA vice speaker and RPA spokesman Edward Shrmazanov does not think the first president’s observations are reasonable. He also does not think that their coalition partner that has announced to be an alternative needs an advocate either. “Probably this is a result of the ANC’s political calculations but I cannot say what those calculations are. We are very calm about all political gestures,” said Sharmazanov.
Whatever it is, the processes happening around the foundation of Vartan Oskanyan are not far from being motivated for political purposes. Rumors say that by doing this the authorities are trying to stop him nominate his candidacy during the upcoming presidential election.
In answer to this statement Edward Sharmazanov said, “I have to remind you that in Armenia times of political repressions and intimidation have gone long ago. The new Armenia, being led by president Sargsyan, is being built on democratic values.” E. Sharmazanov does not agree with the observation that the RPA is promoting the campaign that the PA is backed by Robert Kocharyan.
We contacted the PA spokesman Tigran Urikhanyan to ask for comments on the observations whether there is pressure on the PA and whether Kocharyan is standing behind their political power, however he refused to give any information about the mentioned issues. Instead of them, ARF representative Ruben Hakobyan said the following: “I want to discuss that issue deeper. I think that Ter-Petrosyan had the strategy to propose cooperation with one of the coalition powers for the purpose of isolating the other coalition power. This will have them to have access to the state management. In the beginning they made a lot of efforts to isolate the PA and Robert Kocharyan through the dialogue and to put the blame of all crimes on them. He wanted to go along with Sargsyan against Kocharyan and PA. The proposal is that the responsible people for March 1 and other crimes were these people. They failed this plan. Now they are trying to isolate Sargsyan and RPA together with the PA and Kocharyan to put the whole blame on them. It is the same strategy in a different direction,” said R.Hakobyan.
Ultimately, the political sector is dominated by the political powers that are supporting the three presidents. Te-Petrosyan says that by isolating the PA from the governmental pyramid they want to stimulate competition in the political sector by breaking the one-pole system of the political environment in Armenia.
“I don’t think he wants to break the one-pole system; those are mere words. Let’s remember the united join headquarter that was aimed at taking the monopoly from the RPA. As a result, that headquarter took the responsibility and legitimized the violence of the other coalition power. The bribe and benevolence before the elections was a crime against the statehood, and it was done by the RPA. It made that monopoly even stronger. About 15-20% of the opposition’s votes were taken by the governmental powers. This was a big mistake on the part of the opposition, and it is due to some representatives of the opposition. And people started to understand that the opposition was looking for their leader among the governmental powers. Thus, they were asking why they should give their votes to them. Now the same thing is happening and I don’t think any good thing in it; whatever they say, the qualities and everything are more common for the RPA and PA rather than the PA and ANC. A couple of years ago I said that if the ANC continued playing this way with the governmental powers, nothing will remain from them. At that time the ANC had a great power, but now they could hardly overcome the limit of 7% and if they consider it a success, I have nothing to add. Maybe they want something good, but anyway what they have now is not a success,” said R. Hakobyan.