The Second President’s Chances

Robert Kocharyan is not only returning to politics, but he is also getting ready to participate in the upcoming parliamentary elections. That, in my opinion, is a welcoming step, regardless of what people think of the politician. This is a good test for the second president to see how he is truly regarded. He will not have an administrative lever in the upcoming elections, he won’t be able to threaten or pressure anyone, he won’t be able to close media outlets, and he also won’t be able to give out election bribes. Therefore, the votes that Kocharyan will receive in the parliamentary elections will be ones truly given to him- ones that he was worthy of receiving. In order to have a clean trial, he needs to lead the pre-election ballot so that personal activities won’t play any role.

I don’t hear anything besides swear words and curses from regular people whom I talk to about Kocharyan. (However, let me say that these people do not belong to any political party. They’re not part of the Pan-Armenian National Movement- they regard Ter-Petrosyan the same way). Unlike private citizens, several officials and businessmen have positive feelings about Kocharyan. As far as I understood, during his time as President, there was a specific structural mechanism- who, to whom, and when they needed to ‘pay,’ the mechanism perhaps remained for the next decade, but became demoralized. This caused the aforementioned businessmen’s and official’s dissatisfaction.

Until recently, I could have confidently guessed that a political party or movement led by Kocharyan couldn’t have gotten 4-6 percent of people’s votes. I don’t have the same confidence now. First, the second president’s return to politics became the stimulus for the case opened against him, which is justified through political and moral means, but from a legal perspective, in my opinion, it’s vulnerable. Kocharyan’s release is what especially caused all of this to become possible.

But the second president’s future “promotion” is completely dependent on the results of the current government’s work, beginning with the economy and the Artsakh conflict. The more time goes by, the more difficult it will be to explain the lack of any further movement in these fields that was inherited from the previous administration.

In March of 1998, when Kocharyan came to power against the backdrop of the hysteria surrounding the Pan-Armenian National Movement, during an argument on television I guessed that, if the grass wasn’t mowed in the Syunik region within half a year, they would blame the first president for it.

Aram Abrahamyan