The Prime Minister of Georgia Bidzina Ivanishvili has announced that, as promised, after the elections, he is going leave his position and leave politics, but not the country. Regardless, whether it is a gesture of good will or a calculation (as, of course, Saakashvili urges), is positively perceived by the public, a man came to power, tried to fix something, upon considering its mission complete, did not cling onto chair and left.
The situation is different with our other neighbors: Ilham Aliyev’s wife Mehriban claims the post of president. If this political “operation” is implemented, it will mean that the fight for ‘ilham’ and ‘mehriban’ wings of the Aliyev clan ended with victory of the latter, and even if Ilham remains, it will mean a conservation of the system at least for 10 years. In Azerbaijan, unlike Armenia and Georgia, generally there is no problem in taking the public opinion into consideration (although we are not in blissful condition in that regard), although I am sure that thinking people of our neighboring country realize that with Ilham-Mehriban replacement nothing will change.
Nothing will change for Armenians and Armenia for sure, because Mehriban is the ideologist of anti brutal campaign in the whole world. But Mehriban’s option is purely theoretical for now, Ilham Aliyev’s “reproduction” is much more likely, may be in reserve.
How was the issue of the successor resolved? Levon Ter-Petrosyan, under the pressure of “some powers”, transferred the government to the Prime Minister Robert Kocharyan, which, I suppose, was not the dream of his childhood. However, the first president has never said in a narrow or broad scope whom he sees to be the next President of Armenia. Robert Kocharyan, without visibly expressed displeasure, transferred the power to the Prime Minister Serge Sargsyan. Thus, the post of the Prime Minister is a key in the issue of the successor. The one who is appointed Prime Minister of Armenia in 2015-16, will probably be the candidate for the President in 2018. If nothing extraordinary happens then. By the way, so it happened in Russia during the replacements of Yeltsin-Putin and Putin-Medvedev-Putin.
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There is an issue of successor in the field of opposition. The same Levon Ter-Petrosyan consistently ruled out the possibility of having any successor in ANC movement. That’s why all the bright, pretentious personalities did not entered the ANC newly established party. More pretentious was probably Nichol Pashinyan, and in my opinion it explains the ongoing propaganda campaign of PAP and ANC against him. Of course, Nichol Pushinyan has many drawbacks, but he will never become Geghamyan. It seems to me that there is no prerequisite for it.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
