The opposition MPs are convinced that the dependence of our country has been reduced to the minimum. The imagination of Armenian political forces is rather predictable and transparent, no force has talked about snap elections, “leading the country out of a hole”, immediate resignations or fighting to the end for rather long time. Everyone is busy with processes of guaranteeing a place in the sun till the spring. Some analyses are made on the so-called “pre-election crises”, although none of our interlocutors either opposition or loyal shared the concept of those analyses, saying there is no crisis and everything goes as usual.
In response to our question “is all that happens on the Armenian political stage normal or the processes are unusual?” Artyusha Shahbazyan, a National Assembly member and the secretary of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), answered with a question, “Why are those unusual, they are not, these are different political processes. You are not pleased and satisfied, because the political stage is not mature either, even after twenty years, but to say it is unusual, what is happening that we should say it is unusual. Yes, unfortunately, many political issues are solved in this country not in the political manner and we are witnesses of that and we have been witnessing that they have been trying to solve problems also in other ways. However, I don’t see that we are in an extraordinary situation, in a crisis, in a shock, I don’t see such thing.”
In response to our question how is the election in theRussian Federationand generallyRussiarelated to the political processes in our country. According to some claims, there is certain dependence and answers to many questions can be given by that country’s approval, but our interlocutor did not agree to such analyses and observed, “It is not good that many people think so, because on one hand, we speak arrogantly about our independence, we are proud of it and on the other hand, we want to connect us to Russia based on an unknown logic – it is not good, perhaps elections in France or in the US influence more? I want us not to exaggerate in these issues. The reality is all that can be connected with us, if we want that, as we connect us with many other issues, as e.g. the Armenian-Turkish protocols, prisoners of which we have become. Sometimes we put ourselves in that position, but we should try to be as independent as possible, I don’t speak arrogantly, as it is understandable we are a small country and there can be certain influences.” Stepan Safaryan, the head of the Heritage faction, observed during a conversation with “Aravot” that there is no internal political crisis and it is rather early to make judgments on the pre-election situation, although, “Providing that a few months are left till the parliamentary election, I must say that active preparations are made for the election. If we assess political and social alienation of masses, as a crisis, it is a matter of taste, but in my opinion, there is more political alienation and socio-economic crisis and there are no big reasons for speaking of political crisis.”
According to Stepan Safaryan, one should not absolutize the influence of the parliamentary election held in Russia and generally the influence of that or any other country, “I wouldn’t absolutize the influence of Russia or any other country on the internal political developments in Armenia, but the Russian Federation has much leverage of influence and has always tried to use that for influence. However, I wouldn’t absolutize that, in any case, not everything goes as others wish and this means that there still are political circles inArmeniathat can put obstacles in the way of a certain player’s strategy.”
MARGARIT YESAYAN
