We have forgotten during the past 17 years that a few tens of speeches can be made in the National Assembly and that 47 MPs can be against the Cabinet’s program etc. We are used to the situation when the Cabinet puts questions “point-blank” – “even if it is a mop, it is our party’s mop,” “even if they win 100%, all the same, we will rule.” As a result of such stereotypic approaches the government enjoyed an overwhelming majority in the previous
convocations of the National Assembly and rare opposition voices were just absorbed by the powerful choir of “yea.” Now the atmosphere has changed and the parliament, knock on wood, has started to fulfill its functions. Is it good that the political situation has changed? It seems to me yes, it is good. Not everyone agrees with it. Vartan Oskanian, a Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) MP, for one, who seems to be generally for democracy, makes negative comparisons with the Gorbachev era. Probably he feels some nostalgia for those times, when his boss solved every problem with “enema.”
The first few days of the new National Assembly’s work showed another thing too. Although the “business” slough is still there in the parliamentary groups of the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) and the PAP, one can sense that the day of such figures gradually comes to end. It is not that they are some sort of monsters or want to harm this country. No, it is just they are in politics untimely, they are obsolete, outmoded, if you like. Thick necks and chains, bodyguards capable of everything, complacent vulgarity – all this doesn’t make such an impression as before and they stand out against the background of the better or worse, more or less prepared politicians of the parliament as a vestige, almost like the “enema.” And one shouldn’t be surprised that during a discussion on almost every issue, there should be populist speeches, so-called “arshaksadoyanisms” – “we are on the verge of disaster,” “they have robbed, drunk the blood of the people” etc. Such speeches with certain traits are made in all more or less democratic parliaments around the world. Well, in today’s Milli Məclis of Azerbaijan, one can hardly hear “sadoyanism.” Populism is also a feature of democracy – if they attach importance to being pleasant to the people, there is hope that the society may become a factor. The Prime Minister, in particular, should not be surprised at such speeches, because Mr. Sadoyan was his fellow party member, was he not?
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
