In June 1992, the parties constituting the National Alliance – the Democratic Liberal Party of Armenia (DLPA), the Christian Democratic Party (CDP), the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), the National Self-Determination Party (NSDP), the Constitutional Rights Union (CRU), and the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) – would demand of the government to recognize the independence of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR). Although after the 1998 change of power, the majority of those parties stood by Robert Kocharyan, no one raised the issue of recognizing the NKR. That information is mentioned in Tatul Hakobyan’s book “Green and Black.” Let me add that the RPA is currently an active opponent of recognizing Karabakh’s independence. Politicians and their supporters usually don’t like it when they are reminded about something. They easily find a way to change the subject of the conversation – “out of the context,” “deliberately distorted,” “by this we meant a different thing” etc. Very few people admit – “I thought so before, and now I think otherwise.” In this particular case, that same Republican Party will find lots of reasons why it would demand of the “antinational” government of the time to recognize the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh and now states quite reasonably that it is adventurism. It is not in the interests of either that or the other forces to admit that being opposition years ago, they were engaged in populism, and now they have no possibility of populism. The same thing applies to discussions on the economic condition. At the beginning of the 2000s, Artashes Geghamyan would depict such a horrific picture of social calamity that it seemed that the only way out was to flee this country as soon as possible – certainly, many people did that very thing. However, is the economic situation better now? It seems to be worse. It is just that instead of Geghamyan, other people talk about calamity with the same promises of Armageddon. We have already gained quite a lot of experience to distinguish between political rhetoric and real capabilities. The same thing can be said, as far as recognizing the NKR is concerned, that although Raffi Hovhannisyan has been claiming that for 20 years, he
wouldn’t have done that, if he had become president. Not only because great powers wouldn’t have allowed that, but also because of not wishing to jeopardize the security of Armenia and Karabakh. In the case of the Yerevan City Council election, it is also easy to tell right from wrong. Regardless of who will become the mayor of Yerevan, in the next 10 years, NO ONE will build a new metro station, will restore the streetcar system, will build new trolleybus lines in our capital, and traffic jams in the streets of Yerevan will NEVER disappear. The political forces that say that they will do that are either naïve or deceitful. Instead, there are doable promises. For example, one can stop taking kickbacks. Naturally, the forces that hand out election bribes will not do that. It is obvious that such people bribe to take (keep) power, in order to start (proceed) getting richer using that power. One can make garbage collection serious business and build a garbage recycling plant; admittedly, in that case, the residents will have to pay more. One can streamline condominiums, freeing them from functions of being a “trough” of district relatives and a “center” of bribing voters. At the end of the day, one can stop inviting extravagant “stars” at the city hall’s (taxpayers’) expense, organizing lavish festivals. It would be good, if forces participating in the city council election debated on all this. However, the incumbent mayor stubbornly avoids not only debates, but also answering journalists’ questions. I wonder why.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
