Writer Arpi Voskanyan who is also known for her “political riddles” published in “Haykakan Zhamanak” (Armenian times) newspaper notes that “the word opposition obtains a new meaning nuance due to lasting defeats of the opposition, it has almost become a synonym for the word ‘fair’ which certainly is wrong.”
She reminds that the opposition is something simpler, “All those who are against the government and want to come to power are opposition, irrespective of the fact whether they ever had a power or not. When we do not want to see someone or several more as opposition, we do not believe that they are opposition, we suspect that they have various backstage arrangements with the authorities, first of all, we do not want them to come to power or to come for the second term. In other words, it is not the opposition with whom we can go out to fight or whom we will vote for during the elections. Because we do not see any difference between this kind of opposition and the government which constituted this opposition until recently.”
Looking at the things in this light, Arpi Voskanyan does not exclude that Hovik Abrahamyan’s (an RPA prominent representative until recently), Seyran Ohanyan’s (one of the most responsible positions during the RPA in power – the chair of Armenia’s Defense Minister) and Gagik Tsarukyan’s (entering the same river for the second time) being “opposition” is not a performance. “I believe that why not they can be an opposition, in other words, sincerely striving for power not just for formality but to make the elections legitimate, by attracting votes and other similar motives. But with regard to the vision of Armenia’s development, I will not believe even if I see with my own eyes that they are an opposition, in other words, that they are different from the system and are against the system of which they constitute a part.
From this perspective, certainly, they are not an opposition. If it comes only to the fact whether I believe that all of this cannot be a theater staged by one staging director, then I believe that it may be the case but the fact that these people can really strive for power, then this kind of strive is not acceptable for me. Eventually, purely from a human perspective, it is not clear why one or a few people should constantly stay in power or come to power, especially since their governance was marked with losses and failures.”
