It is understandable why those in power want to stay in power forever, but that is difficult to implement in European political culture. For example, in Armenia, those who wanted to remain in power forever (or for the long term) were met with tough resistance. Levon Ter-Petrossian, who was fairly elected and loved by the people after independence in 1991, was unable to get reelected in 1996 despite the fact that the official announcement said otherwise. Robert Kocharyan was also essentially able to force his presence on Armenian citizens in 2003. But Serzh Sargsyan’s example is more fascinating. After being president for 10 years, he tried to remain in power by changing the Constitution. But that attempt failed, thankfully. In my opinion, the revolution of 2018 was acceptable in that sense and perhaps it will serve as a lesson to future leaders. By the way, it would have been preferable for the third president to have discussed that during his “honest conversation”; now, two years later, does he still find that he did the right thing by attempting to get elected for a third term, especially when he had initially promised not to do so?
Read the entire editorial in Armenian: https://www.aravot.am/2020/08/11/1128742/?fbclid=IwAR1sBiAndwInoH8_qnuvBuQ8ptKXAyyxjJMOYbkrM032f9YQRL64Tgrj7iI
Aram Abrahamyan
