Despite anything, I want to thank Nikol Pashinyan. Although in the last few days he made a few mistakes, sometimes went beyond the bounds of legality, and once he led the people to a clash, there is also a positive side beside the negative. Pashinyan was able to show the tremendous potential of our youth, which can be used to build a new “non-post-soviet” state. But putting that potential in the right direction is a difficult task.
I do not know what should be done for that. For me, it is only clear that any political movement in order to succeed must have a political text. The exclamation “We are against Serzh” is not a political text, nor a goal, nor a strategy.
Pashinyan himself was right at the time saying that gathering people in the square and then taking them to an “excursion” in streets of Yerevan, is senseless and ridiculous, which ultimately leads to disappointment.
People and especially young people who are more impatient with the obvious reasons should see tangible results in their actions. If the result should have been the failure of the National Assembly session or Serzh Sargsyan’s election as prime minister, those goals were not fulfilled.
Therefore, the problem indeed is the establishment of an institutional opposition, not taking young people out for a walk from one governmental building to another. It is clear, however, that if a political leader says, I create structures that will try to make a change of power during the next election, then both material and human resources will drop, and most importantly, young people will say that they want a change of power right now. I see a way out of this seemingly hopeless situation in a consistent educational work.
In short, the way out is “Yelq”. That is to say, Nikol Pashinyan’s fierce, often non-consistent actions, his ability to ignite young people should be balanced by the more “classic” approaches of Edmon Marukyan and Aram Sargsyan. In case if street protests start again, they must set realistic goals, so that people do not get disappointed again.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
