And Yerevan, according to Sharmazanov, is not the Bastille
“Firstly, jealousy has never been a political category for the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA); secondly the reverent gestures of the first president and the ANC to the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) are not novel. As early as before the presidential election, Levon Ter-Petrossian seemed to have become a defender of another political force,” Eduard Sharmazanov, a deputy speaker of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia, said during a conversation with www.aravot.am when asked whether the RPA was jealous of the fact that the first President of the Republic of Armenia had continued to make reverent gestures to the Prosperous Armenia Party, a former coalition partner of the RPA, while talking about his vision of the internal political developments at the founding convention of the ANC. Let us remind that Levon Ter-Petrossian said at the ANC convention that took
place on Saturday: “Unless the high bourgeoisie gets rid of the bonds of the gang rule in Armenia, Armenia will not become a prosperous and democratic state. Unless the high bourgeoisie gets rid of those bonds, small and medium enterprises will not have a possibility to develop, even to germinate; there is no secret here, this is not an issue of personal liking or disliking for those oligarchs. Don’t think that the French bourgeois who carried out a revolution in the 18th century were better, more educated, cleaner, and more moral, than our oligarchs are today! It is not so. They just realized one thing that it is more beneficial to get rid of those bonds, to operate legally and prosper, blossom, at same time, making one’s own country prosper and blossom. Nothing else.” Coming back to Armenia, the first president went into detail: “Now we try to do the same thing in Armenia. And they were up in arms about that idea of ours; how can one suddenly cooperate with the Prosperous Armenia Party, while they are, while they are…? Certainly, everyone, we understand, is, was a part of this system. The PAP was a member of the coalition. However, what was bad in our being able to tear someone away today, another one tomorrow, since there is no other way. While they are intertwined, the high bourgeoisie and the government, know that there is no possibility to change anything in this country! And don’t think that we haven’t achieved anything in this business. We have at least been able to disseminate suspicions among people.” Giving the example of Khachatur Sukiasyan who “was part of the high bourgeoisie, that oligarchy” and broke away from the government in 2008, Ter-Petrossian notes: “Gagik Tsarukyan has taken that same path today. And what do they do? Instead of contributing to that process, instead of doing everything to gradually deepen that, and that person took no step to arouse suspicions that he was really trying to break away from the government. I don’t say that he has completely broken away; he cannot do that, he has a huge business, he is linked through lots of things, but he is trying, he is taking that path, all his steps show that – he left the coalition, he didn’t endorse Serzh Sargsyan in the election, he participated in the parliamentary election separately, he didn’t attend Serzh’s swearing-in in this very hall, and today he is ready to struggle in the [Yerevan] City Council election.” The RPA campaign headquarters manager considers all this in the following context, “Today, in the period after the presidential election, in the run-up to the Yerevan City Council election, in particular, it becomes clear that Ter-Petrossian mostly tries to make other political forces, as it were, feel honor-bound. I think that Ter-Petrossian’s speeches are a bit like nonsense from the perspective of that same political science. It is a bit bewildering; what does it mean that the one who wants to become president should take Yerevan? Yerevan is not the Bastille to take it. As the ANC and its leader tried to make another political force honor-bound to nominate its candidate before the presidential election, and they would jump on the RPA bandwagon and move forward, I think nothing much has changed these days. Understanding quite well that they didn’t have any chances to win serious amount of votes in the city council election, the political force of the figure you have mentioned has become a caboose of a certain political force, paving the way for that force. However, that is their tactical task and doesn’t concern us. We are participating with our programs and to have better Yerevan.” As for the poor chances of the ANC, according to our interlocutor, the very speech of Ter-Petrossian
shows that. “If he had had chances, his team would have participated in the presidential election. Besides, his teammates state that they can only get 7%-8% of the vote.”
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NELLY GRIGORYAN
Aravot Daily
