The first president of independent Armenia was elected four years ago. Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s activities do not need to be praised, nor even need to organize a campaign. His being number one political figure has been proved during this four-year period every day and every hour. If some believe that ordinary citizen does not understand it, they are badly mistaken. If some other group of people insists that the nation is filled with hatred towards its president, they just lie, pursuing promotional purposes. Unlike the preachers, ordinary people know very well (even if they do not formulate) the actual situation of our country and the role of its leader.
Armenia is not a democratic country. As all the countries of the former Union, our country is authoritarian. It is not possible to create other regime in the transition period. Those, who are demanding an immediate move to a Western-type democracy, as the initial phase, let them review their own behavior, for example, decide how burning of the dummy of their country leader, and organizing dancing of African cannibal tribes around the bonfire is in compliance with the ideals announced by them.
Yes, we are an authoritarian country. During the tenure of Levon Ter-Petrosyan, this authoritarian regime had an ‘enlightening’, to some extent, liberal character. For example, there are some opposition parties, some non-official newspapers are published. The same authoritarian regime, without Ter-Petrosyan, would be dark, wild, and intolerable. There are grounds to assume that in this case we all will be forced to be united around national ideology (or any other, the only true ideology). Because we have the experience of 70 years to be united around such things, we also know what it usually results in.
Over the centuries, the leaders of Armenia were facing the issue of finding a balance between the foreign forces. To implement it, it is necessary to have a unique mental calmness and self-possession. Thereby, Levon Ter-Petrosyan positively differs from the rest of the leading members of the Karabakh Committee, whose impetuous-depressive character is incompatible with the leader of our country in this state of affairs.
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Our president is a well-balanced person. And this virtue compensates for his following negative feature: he is scrupulous about choosing political friends, probably, considering it as a secondary problem. Therefore, the palatial passions are boiling next to him for four years continuously, which sometimes came out to the broad public arena, it is supported by provincial – paranoid psychological temperament of some of current and past ANM members. Ter-Petrosyan often acts as a balancing force, as the only guarantor of stability in our country.
In his own words, this is the reality. It’s good that by the end of the 20th century we are not going to have any other president.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
17.10.1995
