Interview by Susanna Petrosyan, Yerevan. Exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza
On February 18th Armenia will hold the presidential elections. Political scientist Alexander Iskandaryan analyzes them in the interview with Vestnik Kavkaza.
- How can the coming elections influence the balance of forces in politics? For example, will importance of oligarchs improve or weaken?
- A president who is elected confidently, who consolidates elites will be freer. The political essence is that he will do what is beneficial for presidential power, and it means consolidation of the political elite and society and deoligarchisaztion. The central power cannot like influence of tycoons on policy. A confident central power doesn’t want major business to influence its decisions. I don’t mean economic decisions. I believe that business’s influence on appointment of officials, including ministers and ambassadors, will weaken.
- Some experts are indignant with the situation in internal politics. According to them, previously an active struggle against falsification took place, but now the situation is different. Do you agree with this view?
- I don’t think falsification was the most serious problem of the last election campaigns. Participants spent huge sums on voters’ bribes, construction of various roads, attraction of important people in regions, PR. Dozens of millions were spent. If falsifications are possible at the level of pushing a button in the Central Election Committee, why should they spend millions? The main instrument of elections in Armenia is not falsifications, but attraction of voters by various means. All ideological forces failed in the parliamentary elections of 2012: Dashnaktsutyun and the ANC gained fewer votes than in the previous elections. For example, the leader of the ANC got 21.5% in the presidential elections of 2008, but in the parliamentary elections his party gained only 7%. The similar situation is with Dashnaktsutyun. At the same time, non-ideological political forces – the RPA and Prosperous Armenia – achieved better results.
Instruments of ideological forces are a word, image, charisma, ideology, i.e. the struggle in a public sphere; while the RPA and Prosperous Armenia construct roads, present gifts, and use administrative resources. The RPA and PA cover the whole territory of the country due to their resources among serious businessmen from this or that regions, who are able to talk to heads of village administrations and governors.
The Armenian opposition always bets on the revolution. As if they change the country in three months, and happiness will come. It is ridiculous. It would be nice if it stays in the past. We are living in the Latin American political environment which requires a quick victory and coming absolute happiness. But establishing of any political force means daily hard working.
- In what situation will the ANC and Prosperous Armenia find themselves after the elections?
- I am afraid the ANC will lose this campaign. As for PA, I believe it will fail and has already failed because Gagik Tsarukyan doesn’t participate in the elections. Probably his reasons for this are based on a businessman’s logic. Participation in the elections requires huge expenses which should be paid off, according to a businessman’s logic.
A politician’s logic is different. It requires a struggle not for a business-capital, but for popularity, attraction of electorate, building political power, and forming an image.
Perhaps Tsarukyan analyzed the situation and concluded that a possibility of his victory is small, i.e. the spent resources will be in vain. Today Armenia has no developed opposition which is ready to struggle for being a serious rival to President. This is the main problem of the opposition.
- Do you think “the elite revolution” or “the revolution of generations’ changing” is taking place? What do you think about prospects of establishing new political elite in Armenia?
- Transformation is taking place in social conscience. However, it is a long process and people are changing during it. There is no “elite revolution.” There were many such revolutions in Armenia, at the moment we witness the fourth stage. The first elite revolution took place in 1988-1991 and was marked by revolutionary intelligent people in power: the committee “Karabakh” and its environment. In 1994-1998 intelligent people were replaced by veterans of the Karabakh war. The brightest episode of the process was resignation of Levon Ter-Petrosyan and Robert Kocharyan’s presidency. The third stage of elite’s changing (2003-2009) is oligarchization. Sometimes veterans of the Karabakh war and oligarchs were the same people. The current elite moves from business elite to technocratic elite. But no change of generations has taken place yet.
