The aim of the dialogue is just a “facade”

According to ethnographer Hranush Kharatyan, under the cover of the dialogue the sides have not reached an agreement on the future presidential election process and on the president’s personality.

– Was your attitude to the dialogue positive or negative at the beginning?
– One can say that I had no sensuous attitude toward the dialogue. Moreover, at the very beginning, I thought that the dialogue is dedicated to one issue only. Those problems that were made public as if subjects of the dialogue have never been and become so. And at the very beginning and especially now, I am convinced that the aim of the dialogue is just a “facade”. The real aim was concealed – the official and opposition sides had to reach an internal agreement on the candidacy of the future president at the upcoming presidential election, and the rest was just a talk about the dialogue.
– Judging from your approach to the dialogue, can one actually assume that they have not reached an agreement on the president’s personality?
– There are a lot of strange things in all this for me. At the very beginning, it was strange for me that the ANC leader stated that the very fact of the dialogue was more important. I.e. all the issues have been solved in the country, because a dialogue is already possible. What issues and how they were solved etc. become quite secondary; the very fact of the dialogue becomes primary. To be frank, if that was his position, the caution or the tendency to stop, to delay – I don’t know what the future plan is, but it seems at the moment – to suspend the dialogue is very strange for me now. If the very fact of the dialogue is so important, they have already reached that, why should they stop it now, and that “very fact” and the “most important thing” be dropped out entirely? There were presented some packages during the dialogue, in which the authorities responded to the issues put forward by the ANC, rather than offered their own plan; the ANC itself made analyses concerning some issues, and made statements concerning some others, but all this has become secondary now, the very fact of the dialogue has become secondary – I just assume from all this that an agreement has not been reached on the presidential election process, maybe even on choosing the president’s personality.
– What did this process show – were the authorities or the ANC fairer in their attitude and pretensions?
– I think neither the opposition, nor the authorities.
– What do you think, what development will the political processes have in autumn?
– Well, they talk about getting back to the form of rallies. Then, I think, the rule-of-bandit and Mongol-Tartar terminology will be stirred up once again.
Now it is obvious that the talk about the pre-term National Assembly and what is more presidential elections is going out of use. However, shortly before the elections there will be some internal agreements, after which the rule-of-bandit and Mongol-Tartar terminology will stop being active and there will be negotiations on the constructive plans for the sake of the country, the talk that the ANC will have an opposition wing in the National Assemble and will balance by that is probable.
– Which are the place, role and interest of the society in all this?
– I don’t see them. I think that the society has made a clear conclusion; today the emigration rate is growing more rapidly, the interest of the people in the politics and positions is declining in the respect of the connection and following. People have just concluded that all this is just a game, where issues of personalities and personal issues are being decided, and not serious concerns, plans about the problems of the country and the population or real prospects of realizing those. People are trying to take their destiny into their hands, notwithstanding the internal economic, political, social and other developments of the country.