By Susanna Petrosyan, Yerevan.
Exclusively for Vestnik Kavkaza Zarui Postanjan, a member of the Armenian parliament, presented her version of the opposition platform last week. The lawmaker proposed that the opposition parties PAP, ANC and Heritage impeach President Serzh Sargsyan, initiate the prosecution of Sargsyan and Robert Kocharyan, return illegally privatized or acquired state property, dismiss and punish judges involved in political persecutions, sentence members of the police, National Security Service and the military involved in political murders and persecutions, form a temporary interim government and hold early parliamentary and presidential polls.
Experts consider the order of steps to be unrealistic. Impeaching the president requires 2/3 of votes of the parliament with approval of the Constitutional Court. According to the law, the Constitutional Court needs to present the accusations of the opposition to the president, then the parliament starts a vote of censure. The parliamentary opposition needs 87 votes to declare impeachment. The parliamentary majority has not been in control of 50 out of 131 votes for the first time in many years. And even then, the opposition will have problems with getting the required number of votes. The legal grounds for impeachment of Sargsyan were prepared by the ANC in 2011. They have been constantly expanded and adjusted according to the situation. In other words, Postanjan’s statement has no legal grounds.
Speaking of illegal actions of the government, the legislator ignored presumption of innocence, only the court decides on guilt. But before the court, there are many facts and events that need investigating, first of all the events of March 1, 2008. The opposition has an insurmountable obstacle here as well: most members of parliament belong to the RPA, they control the prosecutor general. Obviously, prosecution of the incumbent president and ex-President Kocharyan is unreal.
The opposition quartet has a much more real order of actions. It plans to replace the government and start prosecution and investigations only after that.
At the meeting on October 10, a road map for the opposition’s actions to oust the government was presented. According to the plan, the regime needs to stop reproducing using constitutional amendments, it needs to prepare the legal system for democratic elections and form a legitimate government speedily. The opposition warned that a pan-national wave of civil disobedience will be initiated unless the government complies. The next meeting will be held on October 24, a common action program will be passed then.
The question is, why did Postanjan need to voice a more radical position than the opposition quartet? Maybe she is trying to draw attention to herself and improve her personal rating to use it in further political processes. Armenia will definitely go through important internal political processes, but not all people involved in them today have specified their positions.
