When in the fall of 1996 Armenia’s prime minister post was vacant, President Levon Ter-Petrosyan had invited the main party leaders to his office to consult on the issue of the new prime minister. Among others, the president met with the leader of the Communist Party, the late Sergey Badalyan and NSDU leader Paruyr Hayrikyan. While NDU members refused to meet. Why? You can imagine. In their words, they did not want to communicate with the person who had occupying the chair of the president, and the only thing that they were willing to discuss with Ter-Petrosyan were the terms of his immediate resignation.
This underlies the foundations of the tradition that nowadays has become a stereotype of thinking, not only in the minds of the citizens, but also the ordinary citizens. If you’re an opposition, you should not meet, discuss, negotiate, should not speak about your ideas for the development of the country. Your sole mission is to demand an immediate regime change because it’s the only way to save the country. And if you do not promise to bring thousands of people out in the street and “overthrow the regime”, then you’re not an opposition, you are sold, fed from the fertile, a “client” and a “drum”.
As far as I can judge from the “Facebook”, there are a lot of citizens, to whom it seems bizarre that the representatives of the parties meet with the president, they present yesterday’s meetings as an unprecedented sensation. (To the point, if the presidential had not sent an invitation to the ANC, then it is totally wrong). The meetings of the government and the opposition on different platforms should be daily, commonplace and an integral part of everyday political life. Because they are not enemies but various parts of one public system, which should supplement each other by various perceptions.
For example, in the given case, one is in favor of the constitutional amendments, one is against, one is in favor of with a condition, one is against with reservation, one suspects that the government thereby wants to be reproduced (probably thinking that without these changes the government will not be able to do), the other thinks that the Constitution has nothing to do with the “reproduction”. What prevents discussing all of these and once again clarifying the positions of one another?
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The sooner the political parties and citizens abandon the 20-years stereotypes of the political fight, earlier the ideas of bringing the country out of the state of stagnation will be born.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
