By Susanna Petrosyan, Yerevan. Exclusively for Vestnik Kavkaza
The latest events in Armenia have marked a breakthrough in relations between the government and the opposition. Meetings of Prosperous Armenia (BHK), Armenian National Congress (ANC), Dashnaktsutyun (ARF) and the Heritage played a prominent role in the shift of tone. They formed a common agenda through consultations and focus on changing the government.
The opposition parties met at the National Assembly (NA) on March 19 and decided to start collecting signatures to organize an off-schedule session of the NA on April 28 to vote non-confidence. According to leader of the ANC fraction at the parliament Levon Zurabyan, the vote of censure would be only a step towards progress. The final goal is the resignation of President Serzh Sargsyan.
These events formed a new situation in Armenia. It is notable that opposition has taken the lead in political processes. The rising political activity of the opposition and its consolidation, joint efforts of the four parties and the I am Against civil initiative to oppose the accumulative pensions system have weakened the perennial argument about its invulnerability and domination. The power basing on the philosophy of “we are many, so we are stronger and, thus, always right” is now trying to keep up with the events.
The new political reality may be the reason why Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan has proposed a dialogue with the I am Against movement: “A civil society dictating its rules is forming in Armenia. This means that the government needs to correct its work. The position “all or nothing” is unacceptable for us and young people of the civil society. We are ready for a dialogue and we admit that our laws are not perfect.”
In response, members of the movement said that the Constitutional Court should express its opinion about the accumulative pensions on March 28. Activists say that it would be wrong to go for a dialogue with the government before the Constitutional Court makes its decision.
The prime minister’s initiative was also announced to provoke a schism between the four parties and the I am Against initiative. A similar idea can be seen in declarations of lower-rank politicians and publications of government-controlled mass media. These reports claim that “volunteers” among BHK leader Gagik Tsarukyan’s bodyguards were involved in the events of March 1, 2008. Meanwhile, the position of BHK in formation of a temporary commission to investigate the events that happened six years ago seems weak. The ANC itself most likely has evidence that Tsarukyan was not involved in the March 1 crackdown. Otherwise, considering the radical position of ANC in the March 1 case, it is obvious that the organization would not cooperate with BHK. According to some media sources, the government has woken up to break the most influential and powerful non-coalition BHK.
Perhaps efforts of the government to break and weaken the movement is justified. However, in the light of activating opposition, these actions and the prime minister’s readiness for compromise would most likely be ineffective. Those actions would probably be late.
