According to “Civil Consciousness” NGO Chairman Narek Samsonyan “the apologists of dekulakization or decapitation with an exquisite knife or a shotgun must admit their defeat”.
-The President of the Republic of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan in his latest interview to Tert.am did not exclude the probability that after April 9 his candidacy for prime minister might be announced by saying, – “… I’ve never considered myself a person who is guided by prejudice or rigid thinking. I simply can not deny the reality and think that I do not have any responsibility for the smooth development of our country in time”. He then added “… I do not know when we will finish these discussions. But if in the end my candidacy is announced, that would be accompanied by a precondition from my side which is as follows: parallel to the full implementation of the constitutional power, I will allocate much time to share my experience in our country’s visible and invisible affairs gained over the course of time with young politicians”. Can we consider the “intrigue” is over? Under what circumstances and from what positions is Serzh Sargsyan going to take up the post of the country’s Prime Minister?
–The “intrigue” around this question was over after the last year’s elections results were announced, when it became clear that the RPA once again got the de jure opportunity to form the government. By the way, the results of the elections were not put under any suspicion by a single political force that gained seats in the newly elected National Assembly. After changing a country’s system of government, the leader of the political party having the majority of seats in the National Assembly has all rights, if not the obligation, to be the head of the government in a country with parliamentary system of government. The rest of the comments in this context simply contradict the “alphabet” of political science. At first glance, Serzh Sargsyan enters upon the execution of the office in quite favorable conditions where the parliamentary opposition does not have real power sources. As for the extra-parliamentary political forces, these are basically marginal political radicals as well as groups of people promising dekulakization and lynch law. From the political system development point of view, this situation is rather dangerous and I believe that this is the reason why Serzh Sargsyan emphasizes the need of experience sharing with the youth in his well-known interview.
–The three political parties that form the “YELQ” bloc – the “Civil Contract” Party, the “Bright Armenia” Party and the “Republic” Party – will separately work to prevent Serzh Sargsyan’s recreation this time by running for Prime Minister. It seems all these three political parties envision this struggle differently. “Civil Contract” Party Board decided in their session which took place on March 19 to initiate a civil movement against Serzh Sargsyan’s third term. Their roadmap has been accepted and will be released on March 31. Nikol Pashinyan said that “the struggle will be a bare handed one”, they won’t respond to violence with violence. What opportunities does “Civil Contract” have in the sense of mobilizing the society?
–The latest developments in the “YELQ” bloc is quite bothering as long as “YELQ” actually has been a bloc having all the potential to escort a new political culture into our political system, but at present the “separatism” of one of its member parties stops the above-mentioned vision from turning into an empirical reality putting it under a serious danger. By the latter, the “Civil Contract” actually returned to the starting point and it is possible that after failing to fulfill its goals brought forward, it will de facto stop its existence even as a separate institutional body. Today it is simply impossible to mobilize the society by mere populism. This is the reason why back in 2016 after the notorious incidents all the political forces which publicly showed their support to those anti-state processes a year later ended up on the margins of politics. The only way to mobilize all the citizens sharing opposition sentiments is bringing political content into the political arena, but “preventing Serzh Sargsyan’s political recreation” is a senseless populism at the moment as the best moment for that has already been lost. By the way, one of the key arguments of the “Civil Contract” Party leader brought forward in his announcements released during constitutional amendments, was that one of the best ways to prevent Serzh Sargsyan’s political recreation was winning the parliamentary elections, which didn’t happen. In fact, “YELQ” bloc accepted the National Assembly election results thus accepting the RPA’s right to nominate the future prime minister. Now it is ridiculous to speak about changing the political power via non-traditional political means. The other two political parties from the “YELQ” bloc understand this very well and this is the main reason why they refused to take part in street struggle. By taking into account the above-mentioned facts, it becomes obvious that the agenda designed by the “Civil Contract” Party has no practical chance to succeed. Moreover, it is even more “pseudo-agenda”, than the “NO” campaign during constitutional amendments was.
-Members of another civic initiative called “Deny Serzh” organized a protesting march for preventing Serzh Sargsyan from running for prime minister. The march attended not that many people, even there were no police officers to accompany the march. What was the reason for the authorities’ such behavior? Why the police didn’t accompany the march?
-The number of citizens that joined the march organized by that initiative says it all. It is a vivid evidence that it is impossible to mobilize the society (even those who doesn’t have any political interest) by means of populism. The absence of the police forces during the march proves that from tactical point of view the authorities is again a couple of steps ahead. If you closely read the comments following the march, you will see that a number of people were disappointed with the absence of the police forces. There were even those who honestly admitted that the police were removed from the streets for preventing possible clashes with them, so that the number of protesters didn’t increase next time. Making several hundreds more citizens join a protest by showing them that the police uses brutal force against their fellow citizens has been one of the main toolkit of civil struggle so far. In the course of this very march it turned out that the authorities came to realize that simple fact. To put it shortly, that day simply a method called “political jiu-jitsu” was demonstrated by the authorities, which proved that it is impossible to design an agenda by 60 people making “political-civil wisecracks”.
-The “Front for the Sake of the Armenian State” organizes different demonstrations and actions, they also struggle against the governing party, but with rather harsh wording. There are a number of public figures who are ready to lead the people who come to the Freedom Square, but still the rate of public participation is quite low. Why?
-Well-known “political losers” form the group that you’ve mentioned. These are the people whose political trajectory shows clearly that in case even an overcrowded square is entrusted to them, the square in a couple of days will end up being filled with dozens of people – their family members and friends (it’s worth recalling the post-election developments of 2013). Moreover, the main reason why few people go to the Freedom Square is the statements and speeches delivered which are filled with hatred and intolerance and the fact that the ones who claim to be the leaders of the movement are authorized by the people who force them to solve problems by violence.
-A joint struggle of “Civil Contract” and the “Front for the Sake of the Armenian State” can be excluded. Recently, during the court hearings of several members of the “Sasna Tsrer” group, phone call logs were released and then it turned out that one of the members of the “Sasna Tsrer” group Pavlik Manukyan expressed his distrust to Nikol Pashinyan while taking to his friends. Does it mean that we deal with simple jealousy in the ranks of the opposition, or the reasons go much deeper?
-This is not the first time that Pavlik Manukyan uses dirty language talking about Nikol Pashinyan (we can recall the case when after seizing the SPS while taking to a reporter Pavlik Manukyan cursed Nikol Pashinyan). As for the reasons why members of the armed group curse Nikol Pashinyan, I do not have an answer for this. But it is obvious that political competition can be one of the reasons for their conflict of political interest. In the end, members of this group want to see a radical, even terroristic street struggle, but Nikol Pashinyan publicly announced that he is for peaceful struggle and he also wants to lead a street struggle.
-Jirayr Sefilyan was sentenced to 10 and a half years’ imprisonment. The judge found it proved that Sefilyan had been planning mass disorders on the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide by demonstrating armed resistance to the representative of the state, by using force and destroying property and so forth, later in the run-up to the constitutional referendum illegally obtained firearm and ammunition having in mind the desire to seize buildings of strategic importance and impose certain actions on the authorities. On March 17 while delivering his defensive speech at the court Jirayr Sefilyan urged the society to join the initiative by the “Front for the Sake of the Armenian State” and start crafting a sovereign and dignified nation state, once again yelling “Death to the Regime!” and “We are the Masters of Our State!”. A number of NGOs consider Jirayr Sefilyan and his friends political prisoners. Do you consider the measure of punishment taken up against Jirayr Sefilyan and his friends proportionate? Can there be a public uprising on the basis of the struggle that “Sasna Tsrer” designed in future?
-Let the lawyers say whether Jirayr Sefilyan’s and his friends’ punishment was proportionate or not․ It’s a fact that in our country selective justice has been practiced for quite a long time, on the one hand, but there is also an obsession of calling every person who committed minor and serious crimes “political prisoners” on the other hand. As for the political assessments, I think that it’s unacceptable for any state to consider those who call for violent political change and actually work for making those calls come true political prisoners. This is the reason why none of the international organizations considers those people political prisoners. After the October 27 citizens of the Republic of Armenia can not choose political terror as a means of disobedience. No matter it is preached from the Freedom Square, “Kosh” penitentiary or from the organizations getting financial support from abroad. In the end, the apologists of dekulakization or decapitation with an exquisite knife or a shotgun must admit their defeat. All the political issues in Armenia can be solved by political means only and sooner or later everyone must come to realize and take into account this fact.
EMMA GABRIELYAN
“Aravot” 28.03.2018
