OPPOSITION TO BLAME FOR NO “VELVET” REVOLUTION IN ARMENIA
YEREVAN, MARCH 23. ARMINFO. The local opposition is partly to blame
for no “velvet” revolution in Armenia after the 2003 electoral fraud,
says opposition MP Shavarsh Kocharyan.
The opposition swallowed the bait that “the next rally will be
decisive.” But decisive for revolution is pan national commitment
rather than just a next rally. In fact the opposition used a wrong
technology.
The second reason is that the law enforcers in Georgia and Ukraine
did not go against their people knowing that those they were set to
protect (Eduard Shevardnadze and Leonid Kuchma) would not stay in
power. This is not the case in Armenia in either 1996 or 2003. Next
time though the law enforcers will not be so fierce in protecting
Robert Kocharyan as his third term will be a slap in the face of not
only the Armenian people but the whole international community.
Kocharyan says that the opposition will be led by a man who will
manage not only to change the present regime but also to break the
whole vicious system. The present authorities can keep paving the
way for their successors – Parliament Speaker Artur Bagdassaryan,
Defence Minister Serzh Sargsyan, Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan –
but the people knows that they will be just continuation of what is
going on now. Kocharyan does not exclude the possibility of formation
of a new alliance like was the case with the Unity bloc before the 1999
parliamentary elections. “It is a bluff that the opposion in Georgia
or Ukraine would not succeed without Western support. The West sponsors
observers but it does not give money to ralliers,” says Kocharyan.