In Armenia, ahead of the parliamentary elections, the number of those who wish to become a parliamentarian has never been so enormous. Now, it’s hard to imagine that there was a time in Armenia when people having a great opportunity to become a parliamentarian were voluntarily giving up the title or the mandate of a lawmaker. As a proof of my words, I can recall and remind even the previous parliamentary elections when Levon Ter-Petrosyan and Aram Sargsyan ranking the transitional places on the list of ANC alliance refused the parliamentary mandates by passing it to their confederates. My words particularly refer to the businessmen: many of our businessmen having a great opportunity to become a parliamentarian preferred not to become a lawmaker personally but to make their representatives become a lawmaker.
During those times, none of us could assume that there will be a time when the minister or even prime minister will strive or try to become a lawmaker after resigning from their offices. Now, it is that time which we are witnessing. People resigning from their offices are enrolled into different pre-election, even opposition-considered alliances, and what refers to Seyran Ohanyan in person, he is assuming the role to lead this opposition alliance.
Thus, many people become opposition in few hours, declaring that they intend to save the country and the people. As to which of them will save the country and the people, time will tell but the fact that if desired they can and are able to do it, we believe it. We believe because we are a parliamentary country now. This means that the head and the leader of our country will be elected not by us but the parliamentarians. This in its turn means that the lawmaker is simply not the one elected by the people but the one who substitutes and makes the key decisions instead of the people. In other words, the value of the lawmaker has excessively increased. Above all this, the value of the lawmaker expressed by our local currency has also significantly increased. Now, our lawmaker receives as much salary as our minister, as well as a ministerial pension.
No matter we say that they are not dependent on this salary and this pension, a considerable part of them which are not businessmen but in fact, are adjunctions to the businessmen are dependent on this “ministerial” salary and pension, and even though we are saying “ministerial”, in reality, our lawmaker’s situation is better of our minister’s situation, especially in our confused times when any minister can be dismissed at any time while our lawmaker has immunity at least for four years, in many aspects.
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All these are serious reasons for the number of people wishing to become a lawmaker multiplies. At any cost. Mainly by the principle of “if the village stands, it can break a trunk”, in other words, in a group and alliance. Many people have understood that they cannot achieve anything alone, and many people have also understood that they must put aside their personal and ideological controversies at least temporarily and protect each other to the end for the sake of success and result. And if necessary, counterattack anyone who will try to say anything bad to them. If someone reminds the members of these concocted alliances about their ideological differences, they immediately attack, saying, “then you are against the regime change.”
This is just the beginning. It is not even the beginning but just the prelude. Very soon, we will witness real battles. Already between each other. Because hardly they will find a common ground with each other. Due to the lack of mandates. But what should they talk about? There was a time when they were talking about human rights, democracy, independence, and Karabakh. They will talk about the regime change until the day of elections. What are they going to talk about then?
Voskan Yerevantsi
