“There will be no return to the old system,” representatives of various political forces keep telling us. First and foremost, of course, the ruling Civil Contract party. Supposedly, there are “dark forces” dreaming of restoring the old order, while Civil Contract stands ready to defend the “new system” it has created.
This is yet another bluff. We are being asked to believe that the system has changed. In reality, we continue to live under the same system that was established decades ago.
No one’s “little hands” — the term Nikol Pashinyan once used for people who enriched themselves through corruption — have been cut off. From time to time, when some of those people fall out of favor with Pashinyan, empty threats are directed at them. It is also worth noting that if the old “little hands” work for Civil Contract in these elections, just as they once worked for the Republican Party (and we know how that was done), those threats will remain just that — threats. Naturally, a great many new Civil Contract and Civil Contract–aligned “little hands” have emerged as well.
And if you think these people are humble folk living from hand to mouth, you are badly mistaken. Many of them are dollar millionaires who merely pretend to have come from ordinary backgrounds. Their talk of corruption and of “returning the loot to the people” may sound appealing to the less discerning part of the public. But if their supporters truly believe that former President Robert Kocharyan possesses $4 billion, why do they never ask how much of those $4 billion has actually been returned to the people? Kocharyan supposedly had $4 billion in 2018. Does he still have it today?
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Both then and now, oligarchs, government officials, and their relatives have regarded people like us — ordinary citizens who live genuinely modest lives — as little more than workhorses. They continue to do so, no matter how many heart signs they flash. And that, more than anything else, is proof that the system itself has not changed.
Nor has the judicial system changed. Alongside a handful of decent professionals stand those who have served every government in turn, as well as younger officials who quickly learned how to carry out instructions from above. The same can be said of investigators, police officers, prosecutors, and security-service personnel. They are all representatives of the same system that has existed for decades.
In my view, opposition forces should stop talking about preventing a return to the “old system.” One cannot return to something that no longer exists. Instead, they should be discussing how to create a genuinely new system.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
