Today www.aravot.am asked political scientist Gagik Hambaryan how he assessed Republic Party leader Aram Zaven Sargsyan’s chances of becoming the president. Is it possible that this politician who came back from the US the other day will finally decide to announce his candidacy for the president after getting the sponsorship of the West and become Armenians’ Saakashvili? “I by no means think that Aram Sargsyan will manage to become Mikheil Saakashvili, because he doesn’t have that charisma, neither does he have that popularity among our population. Saakashvili is a personality who learned completely different political lessons, he managed to take up rather high offices – up to the Minister of Justice – in his country at a young age and became the politician who, betraying the person who had brought him to power, was able to topple him and entirely change the Georgian political system. Unfortunately, we don’t have such a politician yet, moreover, Aram Zaven Sargsyan is a completely inappropriate candidate. Certainly, he also held a high office, but he cannot take credit for that; it was a result of well-known political events,” the political scientist says.
According to our interlocutor, Mikheil Saakashvili didn’t have a past restraining him, whereas Aram Sargsyan’s family is close to members of the government and generally, the factors restraining him are many. “Naturally, the government will be able to use all that against him, if the latter tries to play his own game. And don’t forget that the Armenian society is not pro-Western; there is a stereotypic idea in our society that if the Russian is not there, Armenia will exist no more. This is the very reason why pro-Western forces are not so successful in our country. The second problem is that Aram Sargsyan should appear as an opposition, whereas it is in question whether all opposition forces will agree to endorse Aram Zaven Sargsyan. It seems to me that very few will, so it will be very hard to divide the pro-government forces, because the pro-government forces are fed by the current system. And the opposition, which longs for power and includes also Aram Zaven Sargsyan, must establish a centralized body, in order to have a joint candidate. And we see different versions here, names of different persons; they already name 5-6 people, which should be announced by the opposition as candidates for the presidential election. As a result of that, the votes of the opposition disappear – 5-6 candidates is a large number for the opposition camp of a small country like Armenia; there should have been two candidates at most,” the political scientist thinks.
Nune AREVSHATYAN
