“Give me your list” – “I will send it tomorrow”

  The ANC list has not found its governmental “pair” yet

 The previous day the ANC held an out-of-turn meeting of the political council, after which it made public the names of the people who will form the so called “dialogue delegation”.  The government does not rush to respond. The government has not even blinked its eye yet and does not say a word about the ANC proposal. The RPA press secretary Edward Sharmazanov and other representatives of the RPA deny in unison the spread news that the issue of what attitude to express toward the ANC delegation will be discussed at the RPA board meeting. It is not a secret for anyone that only one person can decide on the issue of participating or not participating in the format proposed by the ANC, and that person is the president of the republic. Mr. Sharmazanov also stated that, “The monopoly to decide belongs to the president of the country, and the president of the country will decide, I cannot say anything at the moment.” Repeating once again what he said in the electronic mass media about the possibility, I should say the impossibility of pre-term elections that there are no grounds and reasons for pre-term elections, the RPA press secretary did not forget to remind, as follows, “During these past years the president of the country has proved that the steps of the government are directed to the formation of the civil society in the country, to the strengthening of the human freedoms; it was talked about many times.”

In any case the ANC has already got its list that is very interesting, since there is only one party representative other than the HHSh (Pan-Armenian National Movement); he is the PPA representative Felix Khachatryan, the others are either present, or ex-HHSh members or non-party people. I.e. none of the 22 parties and NGOs, parts of the ANC, is included here. It would be interesting if the coalition included only Republicans in its list and one RLP member pro forma. Before the list was made public the editor of our newspaper proposed his own list of “negotiators”; Levon Zurabyan and Avetis Avagyan as the ANC representatives, David Harutyunyan and Hrayr Tovmasyan as the government representatives (yet it seemed that those candidacies should have been agreed on before making them public). We thought at the time that two members from each side are more than enough – in this kind of issues the less the participants are, the more productive the work is. It turned out that the ANC, according to the principle unknown to us, offered five. Does the existence of those five people guarantee that the government will also be satisfied with five? Certainly, no. Galust Sahakyan already stated that if they even decided to have a list, it was probable, that it would be more numerous. Let us suppose that the government accepted the opposition proposal and in its turn presented a list (I involuntarily remembered the Stepan Demirchyan-Robert Kocharyan well-known list-list dialogue in as early as the year 2003, when one was saying show me your list and the other I would send it the next day), it is obvious, is it not, that Serzh Sargsyan, Hovik Abrahamyan or Gagik Tsarukyan would not be in that list. If the government even formed a list, one economist, for example RPA member Gagik Minasyan, one current CEC (Central Electoral Committee) member vis-à-vis an ex-member of the CEC, for example Abraham Bakhchagulyan, one PAP member, for example Aram Safaryan, one RLP member, for example Heghine Bisharyan and one other Republican, for example Edward Sharmazanov might be in that list. After that, the following scenario would be possible (as a semi-comic version). The opposition would take that list and go to the Freedom Square rostrum saying that it has to consult with the people on every issue. One of the ANC leaders holding the list in his hand would ask the gathered, “Do you want us to negotiate with these people?”, then he would read the names loudly, “Aram Safaryan” (shrill whistles), “Heghine Bisharyan” (whistles, curses), “Edward Sharmazanov” (whistles, cries). “It is obvious”, would conclude the oppositionist, “that it is a wrong list that testifies to the destructive attitude. But we will talk about that at the next rally.”