Armenian leader rules out revolution in his country

Mediamax news agency
11 Apr 05

YEREVAN

Armenian President Robert Kocharyan urged the opposition not to be
“preoccupied” with their failure to stage a revolution like in
Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan in reply to questions of the students
of Yerevan State University’s Economic Department today.

“They have failed to do so not because they did not do enough for
this, but because our country is better and the authorities are
working more effectively,” Kocharyan said. He added that “one should
seriously analyse the events in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan since,
despite obvious similarities, they were different in terms of their
nature and also the cultural environments where they happened”.

“All these revolutions took place when these countries had elections
and the weakness of the authorities was obvious,” the Armenian
president said. “For instance, in Georgia, people could not get their
pensions for years. They received electricity only three hours a
day. Kyrgyzstan was in the same economic situation. The state budget
of this country in 2004 was smaller than in 2003. Generations changed
in all three countries – younger and more dynamic leaders replaced old
Soviet leaders. The same kind of change of generations happened twice
in Armenia, in 1991 and 1998.”

Kocharyan also said that those who came to power in Georgia, Ukraine
and Kyrgyzstan had occupied senior government positions several years
before. He said the reason the people who are currently in top
positions in Tbilisi, Kiev and Bishkek had resigned and opposed their
governments was that they aspired to more intensive reforms, which led
to conflicts within the governments.

The Armenian president said an analysis of the aforementioned factors
clearly shows that the situation that led to revolutions in Georgia,
Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan “has nothing in common with what we have in
Armenia today”.