In response to a question of www.aravot.am, “You said that Gagik Tsarukyan played a shell game with everyone, didn’t say where the pea was, and today you say that Gagik Tsarukyan has been terrified,” Hmayak Hovhannisyan, the President of the Union of Political Scientists, said: “It was a prophecy that has proved to be right. All three presidents are deceived by Gagik Tsarukyan. Robert Kocharyan was deceived, because he was for a competitive election, a competitive situation and thought that competitive conditions had to be created with active participation of the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP). His expectations were not met. Serzh
Sargsyan thought – Hovik Abrahamyan convinced him quite well – that Gagik Tsarukyan would state at the last moment that he would remain loyal to the president, stick to his signature he had put on the memorandum in 2011 and would endorse Serzh Sargsyan, which hasn’t happened. This really was a surprise for Serzh Sargsyan, because he was convinced in that, and members of the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) directed by the same conductor would state that Gagik Tsarukyan would endorse Serzh Sargsyan. And Levon Ter-Petrossian hoped that being excited by his political analyses, Gagik Tsarukyan would support his candidacy. He shuffled all three, all three shells very skillfully, kept the ball in his pocket at the end and said he would boycott. That boycott was not in accordance with those plans.”
In response to our question whether it hadn’t come out that the pea was in Serzh Sargsyan’s pocket, he said: “No. Serzh Sargsyan realized that Gagik Tsarukyan had to either participate in the election himself or, at best, avoid participating and endorsing him. It was the lesser of two evils for him. Like in Orwell’s ‘1984,’ if Gagik Tsarukyan is asked to sign that he is against the English snobbery just not to be harmed, no doubt he will do it. This is a characteristic of the totalitarian regime; nothing can be done against pain. Orwell shows that.”
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
