ARMENIAN OPPOSITION TO CHANGE STRATEGY SOON, PREMIER SAYS

Aykakan Zhamanak, Yerevan
19 Jun 04

An interview with Prime Minister Andranik Markaryan. He comments on
the opposition struggle.

(Aykakan Zhamanak correspondent) Mr Prime Minister, the opposition
thinks that the first stage of the struggle against the authorities
to come to power has finished. How do you assess the first round of
the opposition-authorities fight?

(Andranik Markaryan) I do not think there was a fight between the
authorities and the opposition. Simply the opposition put forward
some problems and during that period the authorities continued their
routine activity ensuring the settlement of internal and external
problems, naturally, paying attention to the problems put forward
by the opposition. I do not want to say that the opposition and the
authorities in our country were fighting each other, as a result of
which one of them won. Simply political processes took place, during
which one of the parties felt that the problems raised by them were
not politically realistic.

For this reason I think that by the end of the year the opposition will
try to change its strategy in order to be able to present its political
demands in a more favourable way. Naturally, the authorities should
also try to settle existing problems by implementing certain work
together with the opposition as well and ease possible tension. So,
here I do not want to see a winner and a loser. We should assess
what took place from the point of view of our country’s rating: has
the rating of our country surged or dropped in the course of these
processes? I think it has dropped a little.

(Correspondent) But the opposition does not think that its political
demands are not realistic. According to opposition leaders, they
failed to fulfil their programmes at this stage because the opposition
continued to fight using constitutional methods against the authorities
which were acting in an unconstitutional way.

(Markaryan) I cannot agree with this. Simply the authorities
were trying to bring the opposition’s actions into line with the
law. As for the opposition’s failure, I think they were acting
incorrectly from the very beginning. Because though there is objective
displeasure in the country, this displeasure should not be expressed
at extraordinary elections, especially in an illegal form such as a
vote of confidence. This is one of the opposition’s mistakes.

Another mistake of the opposition was that they were trying to liken
the situation in Armenia to the situation in Georgia and to come to
power in this way. Whereas it is clear that after any elections,
part of society is always displeased with the results. Simply
that displeasure should be expressed at the next elections and the
opposition should work in this direction. Otherwise we will be holding
extraordinary elections permanently.

(Correspondent) But if the opposition was unable to settle its problems
during this stage, the reason is not that all the existing problems
of the country have been settled and the demands of the opposition
are not realistic.

(Markaryan) But who says that all the existing problems of the country
have been settled? I can say with responsibility that nobody speaks
about our problems more than the government itself. You may open the
strategic programme for poverty reduction or the anti-corruption
programme, and I can assure you that in these two programmes the
situation in our country is presented more harshly than the opposition
was telling about it in the newspapers or in the streets. We do not
make a secret of it. At the same time, we say that we are trying to
settle these problems. The opposition says that our way is wrong, and
if we leave they will settle all the problems. If they can settle them,
let them se ttle the problems now, or tell us how to settle them. But
their proposal is: leave and we shall come and settle the problems.

(Passage omitted: minor details)