When the opposition was holding similar rallies a year ago, the following was proposed as a solution: the prime minister resigns, and snap elections are being held. It was clear back then that it was not a solution: no matter who is going to win the elections, the winner would have formal (Max Weber would say “bureaucratic”) legitimacy and would have a document on winning, which wouldn’t ensure the public peace. The propagandists of the authorities explain the absence of stability as “ambitions of revanchists”, and as a rule, they call for simply suppressing those rallies, but the problem goes deeper.
Even if there was no one on the streets this time, the division of the society wouldn’t be gone anywhere. Elections cannot stabilize the situation. If the winner says that the citizens who voted for him are people, and the ones who voted against him are mass sold to the robbers. And the losers claim that the supporters of the government are “Turks”.
Thus, the political leaders widen the abyss between the two parts of society. Of course, the situation is being exacerbated also by the humiliating defeat in war, which these two parts of society explain in radically different ways. As a result, every day we are witnessing a painful scene when passersby swear and curse the protesters, and the latter responds in the same way to the government supporters. And again, propagandists from both sides say that they are respectively “provocateurs of the Civil Contract” or “they took money from the robbers”. If there are people who think so then it is a self-deception, I would even say, self-consolation. Both sides are our fellow citizens, our brothers and sisters, whose political forces are pushing them against each other. And it doesn’t matter whether the ratio of those sides is 50/50, 60/40, or 70/30, in all cases, it is an explosive situation, which let me repeat, will not be solved by resignations and elections.
Negotiations are the way out, but the sides are not ready – “we will negotiate on terms of resignation”, “we will only negotiate on returning the loot”. These are the approaches that lead to a deadlock. Meanwhile, it is clear that in the parliamentary state the place to resolve these conflicts is the parliament.
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Recently one of my relatives reminded me of a decision by our parliament made 30 years ago in a similar situation (and in the case of more powerful demonstrations). On July 8, 1992, the Supreme Council of Armenia decided to consider inadmissible for the Republic of Armenia any international or domestic document where Nagorno Karabakh will be mentioned as part of Azerbaijan. It should be noted that the intellectual level and state perception of deputies in 1990 were higher than today.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
