“Gagik Tsarukyan seems to play a shell game with the three presidents and doesn’t say under whom the pea is.” Hmayak Hovhannisyan who made this political analysis at the time clearly knows and predicts today under whom the pea is. During a conversation with www.aravot.am, he said, “Perhaps, there is no pea there at all and the pea is in his pocket. He will announce his candidacy.”
In response to our question whether, according to him, Levon Ter-Petrossian, the Armenian National Congress (ANC) leader, had not realized that Gagik Tsarukyan had played a shell game with him and would endorse the candidate of the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) now, Hmayak Hovhannisyan said, “And what other possibility does he have? Politics is the art of possibility. What possibility other than this path Levon Ter-Petrossian has today? If he doesn’t endorse, there are two options – either he is nominated, or he should say that he doesn’t endorse anyone. Certainly, to say that he doesn’t endorse anyone is much harder. So he should be nominated. If he is nominated, it will be a fiasco. You know, it is the least of three evils for him to say that ‘in the current situation, since the government has put Vartan Oskanian under intense pressure, yes, he is guilty, but I forgive him. The people forgave me why shouldn’t I forgive?’ He will make a speech like this and will get out of that situation with minimum losses. And the other two options – he is nominated or he says that he has gone home to grow apricot trees, cultivate the garden and engage in science, what is that? Is it a better option than to endorse the joint candidate represented by the PAP?”
According to Hmayak Hovhannisyan, the ANC got weaker when it started to send messages to the PAP, “Isn’t it so that if one gets into water not being afraid of getting wet, one cannot go back? One is compelled to go on, because retreating means that one is not capable of succeeding in one’s political calculations and it is the worst thing. So, if one appears in a furrow and that furrow leads him in a certain direction, one is compelled to go in that direction. Today Levon Ter-Petrossian doesn’t have much choice. He has cornered himself
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with those political analyses, empty hopes that the PAP may choose his candidacy. And now to say that ‘you know what, that political analysis of mine, those words of praise for Tsarukyan and the PAP were caused by the fact that I, being naïve, cherished hopes that they would endorse my candidacy’ means committing a suicide, becoming a kamikaze. Naturally, he cannot take that path. Thus, he must save his face hanging on to the Vartan Oskanian alibi and saying that ‘if a man is persecuted, I was persecuted too and people who disagreed with me, nonetheless, endorsed me at the time, even Suren Harutyunyan, there is no denying. Thus, under these circumstances, I endorse, even with reservations, which are still there, even Robert Kocharyan. However, it is more important today to get out of this situation. It is more important to change the government.’ Thus, he will get away by the skin of his teeth from a situation, which presupposes a psychological escape from an offensive situation.”
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
