If some people think that contradictions and discrepancies between Levon Ter-Petrosyan and Vazgen Manukyan started after PANM comes to power, to put it mildly, are wrong.
Before coming to power, still in the “Karabakh” committee staff, controversy between these two individuals, however, existed, in fact, quite serious and noticeable from the outside contradictions.
There were rumors during the Karabakh movement that Vazgen Manukyan is the leader of the “Karabakh” Committee pro-western and liberal wing, and Levon Ter-Petrosyan represents relatively pro-Russian wing of the Committee. In other words, before coming to power, there were splits and discrepancies in PANM, which were deepened further when Levon Ter-Petrosyan became the President of the Supreme Council, and Vazgen Manukyan as Prime Minister. In fact, Ter-Petrosyan’s wing won, more precisely, Ter-Petrosyan’s wing thanks to the parliamentary votes was successful to subordinate the role of the first Prime Minister of the independent Republic of Armenia to the role of the first President of Supreme Council of the independent Republic of Armenia. And, soon, the first Prime Minister with his team resigned, moreover, quite voluntarily, because Ter- Petrosyan not only had the majority in the parliament, but also among the people, due to which very soon he became Armenia’s first President. Whilst Vazgen Manukyan’s supporters, detaching from PANM, were renamed National Democratic Party.
From the very first years, Levon Ter-Petrosyan was an extremely successful politician. He was particularly successful in the surrounding of post-Soviet Republics leaders. Levon was Russian President Boris Yeltsin’s “favorite”, and was considered one of the most advanced and the most democratic leaders of the newly independent republics, as well as the youngest.
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It has long been forgotten that it is possible to maintain Armenian by “Jermuk”, and Levon Ter-Petrosyan and his team, some have already realized that our only “capital” is the democracy. And, indeed, for some time, Armenia was considered an island of democracy in the Caucasus, and it was quite an objective opinion, and it is natural that the president of this island was to adopt western and democratic values, and so it happened. However, Ter-Petrosyan adopting western values did not spoil the relations with Russia and, personally, Yeltsin. Moreover, during almost the entire war, Armenia and Russia were in harmony with each other also in the terms of military, in the face of Grachov and Vazgen Sargsyan.
However, in the first of independence and almost during the entire war, Armenia’s political and military cooperation has never been in such harmony, and the main reason of it were the excellent personal relationships between Yeltsin and Levon Ter-Petrosyan on the basis of democracy and progress. Nevertheless, in those years, there were things happening in the politics that nowadays are hard to understand. Armenia was not only considered an islet of democracy in the Transcaucasus, but also deploying Russian troops at the border with Armenia.
It seemed that after the successful cease of the war, Armenia should have become more democratic, but it turned out the opposite.
First, the National Assembly elections in 1995, followed by the presidential elections in 1996, turned out to be controversy, and the opposition began to doubt the election results. The West did not definitely accept them. The democratic islet began to sink, and in early 1998, the first president resigned. In fact, under the pressure of forces known to us.
We, taking the stance of a wise man, showed that we know who the “forces known to us” are, while, in reality, we should just try to learn and understand.
We’ll try next time.
Voskan YEREVANTSI
Armenia was not only considered an islet of democracy in the Transcaucasus, but also deploying Russian troops at the border with Armenia.
