“The young people were emigrating then also, many of them left. In those times, they were leaving more. I do not want to make you cry, but in those times, most of my friends did not have 50 AMD to get to the dormitory. Or, if we were getting the 50 drams, we were going, in the morning we did not have money, we were getting from our friends to get to classes, not to speak about the money for cigarette. Under the lamp light and candle light, when the winter of 1994-95 was the coldest, we were having lessons in those cold days”, told RPA Spokesperson, NA Deputy Speaker Eduard Sharmazanov, in the conversation with Aravot.am, referring to the difficulties of his student years. “At that time, we were more romantic, we were going here and there to find a generator, with our means one was saying to other’s father, the other to his friend to organize a students’ spring, to organize a golden autumn. The advantages of that time was that we did not have hatred. We could criticize, but romanticism was too much,” said Mr. Sharmazanov, assuring that the students have less problems under the current government than they had. “Surely, we have many defects, I have not fallen from the moon. Certainly, not everything is good. If 35-40 percent of the country is officially in poverty, how can we say that everything is fine? I see my neighbor, I realize, I see it, don’t I? I do not want to make you cry, but we also feel it, do we? We have relatives and friends, and we feel it. If I stand up and say that we live in Switzerland, it is not true. But at least in terms of the development of democracy, we must state that there is much serious progress. Eventually, A1+ is not shut down, is it? A1+ is back on the air.” According to him, people do not see the great progress that is available under these authorities after dark and cold years. “We are easily accustomed to the positive, but not to the negative. When A1+ was not on the air, we were all thinking that if A1+ returns on air, we all should be happy and fortunate. A1+ returned on the air, we saw that people rejoiced 1, 2, and 3 days, talked about it, afterwards it became a common thing. People were saying that there are politicians for whom television is vetoed. We saw that there is no opposition figure in Armenia, who cannot present his opinion to the public on TV. It learned that too. When we were saying that there is no cooperation in parliament, it is not so. There are many legislative initiatives, in which the government is cooperating with the opposition.” According to Mr. Sharmazanov, the Constitutional Court’s decision proves that we now have an independent judicial authority. “In 2007 and 2008, the number one problem in our society was the lack of pluralism, the lack of freedom of expression and the retreat of democratic values. The years of 2006-2007 were the best in terms of economic development. But we saw what a large anti-government protest happened in 2008 after the same presidential elections. But, now, this most important problem of 2007-2008 is solved. Today, no media speaks that there is a political prisoner, no figure says that he has a matter of restriction on freedom of expression. This means that we are moving in the development path that we had set forth on September 21, 199; it is the establishment of a free, sovereign, and democratic republic.”
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
