Pertaining to Ukrainian events, the following question was constantly voiced among us of why there is no Maidan formed in Armenia. Even now the same question is voiced from time to time, and that is the reason why we decided to address this issue once again.
Who is who, but Armenians have no right to treat “maidans” with jealousy and longing because we have had Maidan in 1988, later in 1996, afterwards in 2008. It’s another question what outcomes did they provide. The Ukrainian first orange revolution won, it’s true, however, by and large, it did not provide particularly serious outcomes, otherwise Yanukovych was unlikely to come to power.
Georgian Rose Revolution was also, essentially, an orange one, and if Georgians were happy with the leader of Rose Revolution, subsequently Saakashvili was unlikely to achieve substantial successes.
However, in my opinion, Saakashvili did far more in Georgia than Yushchenko in Ukraine. Just for example in terms of the fight against corruption, though many Georgians hate Saakashvili for the very fight against corruption.
Read also
I myself have talked with Georgians and I can assure you that Saakashvili has not quite few supporters in Georgia. The same is hard to say about Yushchenko. Regarding Yushchenko, we can say that he has no chance to return to power, and if quite new opposition leaders did not emerge in Ukraine, “maidan” was unlikely to be filled in Ukraine because the protesting people was feeling the demand for new leaders, and the new leaders in Ukraine were two instead of one, in the face of intellectual Yatsenyuk and healthy spirit in healthy body build up Klitschko.
Anyway, let’s get back to us. Unlike Ukraine, in 2008, Armenia’s maidan leader was not a new face rather than Armenia’s first president Levon Ter-Petrosyan, in other words, the well-forgotten old, and since 1996, our maidan leader Vazgen Manukyan was also a well-forgotten old as the latter was the first Prime Minister of Armenia.
In short, we do not only avert our face from our previous ones, moreover, at times we miss them, and perhaps that is the reason that it also occurs to the mind of Armenia’s second president Robert Kocharyan to enjoy bliss, and though many are treating the topic of Kocharyan’s return with contempt, however, the topic is already opened, and they are also people inspired by this topic.
People inspired by this topic and those who show disregard to the topic are approximately equally wrong, because life has been repeatedly shown that everything is possible in Armenia, moreover, life has a few times already showed to us that change of power never happens in Armenia via revolution, nor through elections rather than only through a coup, however, the coups usually are not colored, and life has also showed (in fact, not only in Armenia) that people conducting coups are usually unsuccessful of those affected by coups, and even if it were the opposite, it would be useless to cherish a hope to this respect, because life has also shown that the oppositions who rely on domestic contradictions, later they appear in a funny situation and on the “curb”.
In short, if you are an opposition political force and have real reform programs to change the life of people and the country, you should also seek and find your own ways to achieve the power, of course, not without the support of people and the critical.
In fact, people should not force you to go ahead as it happened in the case of “Heritage” rather than you should bring people forward and lead them by assuming the entire responsibility from the beginning to the end.
Indeed, the existence of new leaders is desired. But, if the new ones do not emerge, we have to move ahead with the old ones, but only ahead, especially when we have no longer a place to go back.
Voskan YEREVANTSY
