On March 1 of the current year, the incumbent President, Serzh Sargsyan annulled the Armenian-Turkish protocols against which various circles of Diaspora had been complaining for more than 8 years, Armenian Revolutionary Federation members on the first place. On March 2, Armen Sargsyan was elected as the President, who enjoys the support of those circles. The 3rd President was talking about his intention since long ago, and the issue of the 4th president’s election was, presumably, solved at the moment of his nomination. However, in politics, the sequence of events bears at least a symbolic character, and has also an inner logics at the depth, I think.
Usually it is said that Armen Sargsyan’s nomination was a gesture pointing at the West. It is partly true. The elected President, having lived in the Great Britain for a long time, is assuredly connected with the western culture, at the large sense of that word. I mean the organization of the work, the style of communication and etc. Nevertheless, as much as I am familiar with the peculiarities of Armen Sargsyan’s biography, he has certain connections with the economic (“energy”) elite of Russia alike.
But if we speak about “gestures”, then the nomination of such candidacy was a message to the Diaspora as well. Do you remember when the new Constitution was being discussed? There was an idea to enable the 4th president to be elected by the representatives of the Diaspora’s structures as well. Afterwards they declined that idea, perhaps because of the reason that it would be technically very difficult to implement, and those structures would quarrel with each other on how much weight had each of them in the Diaspora. But Armen Sargsyan’s nomination makes the situation milder to some extent, inasmuch as his “pre-election” meetings with the structures of the European and Lebanese structures of Diaspora proved that in the issue of the 4th president those structures had no disagreements.
Although it is spoken about the importance of the Diaspora for already 26 years, we (I mean us all – at least 10 million Armenians spread throughout the whole world) have not found the algorithm of the cooperation yet, which would essentially differ from Diaspora-Soviet Armenia relations: the meaning of them should not be lowered similarly. As we understand, the factor of the independent state is completely different. I do not think that everything will start changing tomorrow forward, but maybe Armen Sargsyan will start seeking for that algorithm.
I speak of the traditional Diaspora, of course, the fellow Armenians whose several generations have settled in various countries of the world. The issue of hundreds of thousands of people having emigrated from Armenia in the past 25 years and who feel a bitterness towards their homeland is more difficult. We should work with them as well, but how – I do not know, honestly.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
