Vigen Hakobyan: Breakup of Armenian ruling coalition will dissolve the
Speaker’s party

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18:35 05/13/2006

After all, the ruling coalition in Armenia has failed and collapsed
before the 2007 parliamentary elections. The most important in the
situation is that Robert Kocharian’s promise to preserve the alliance
was broken. Last December, the Armenian President said: `The coalition
that is a political agreement of the four subjects, namely the three
parties and the President, is created for the four-year period. It
could be modified one way or another, but we are going to carry the
obligations and the responsibility before ourselves and before the
people.’ The fact that the Orinats Yerkir (Country of Law, OY) party
headed by the Parliament Chairman Artur Bagdasarian has left the
coalition means the breakup of the ruling alliance, which in its turn
means breaking the political agreement and the failure of political
parties and the President himself to live up to their promises. Who is
to blame for the failure?

Before we approach to answering the question, we should point to the
circumstances that prepared the ground for the disintegration. The
Orinats Yerkir party was the first to pronounce its intent to exit the
coalition after a series of scandals caused by the statements the
Speaker made on topics of domestic and international Armenian
policy. Bagdasarian repeatedly accused his colleagues in the coalition
(who had chosen him a Chairman) with electoral fraud.

On top of these charges, he shocked the crowd by presenting his vision
of Armenian international priorities and the formula of `Russian
impediment on Armenia’s way to joining NATO.’

The last move had the least influence on Bagdasarian’s political
career since it fit the multi-vector orientation of Armenian
international policy. But the Speaker’s doubts on the integrity and
transparency of the past parliamentary elections accompanied by his
massive correspondence with the Prosecutor General of Armenia appeared
to be quite contradictory to the very logic of political cooperation
between Orinats Yerkir, on the one hand, and Armenian Revolutionary
Federation (Dashnaktsutsiun) and Republican Party of Armenia, on the
other, within the alliance.

The latter two political bodies who consistently implemented the
Speaker’s social projects, including the main one to return funds
accumulated on resident saver accounts to the public, were clearly
determined to preserve the existing political format before the
parliamentary elections. The Orinats Yerkir party, however, proved to
be an extremely uncooperative partner. It stuck to its uncompromising
policy on several delicate issues, including the issue of
denationalization. By doing this, Orinats Yerkir hurt interests of the
Republican Party best represented in the ruling alliance.

>From the point of view of Orinats Yerkir’s philosophy, the pre-term
exiting the coalition was, in its essence, an end in itself. The party
needed to define its own political course and, so to speak, to show
its face to the public.

Association with the RPA and Dashnaktsutsiun stripped the party of any
chance to develop its own policy. Such policy, according to Orinats
Yerkir functionaries, could yield substantial results at the
parliamentary elections and create a basis for running a presidential
campaign. Besides, close alliance with the ruling parties narrowed
Orinats Yerkir’s choices in its looking for international
investors. The latter justly identified the party as a political
reserve of the acting President, whereas Bagdasarian’s rhetorical
demarches ` as a tactical move of dubious openness.

2005 and the beginning of 2006 became for Orinats Yerkir a tough
period of molding its political identity. It switched from the image
of the new opposition locomotive force to the stance of self-reliant
alternative organization capable to alter the course of the
game. This, however, did not change the essence of the party’s
character. It remained a new ` and, frankly speaking, a hastily
knocked together ` party that, quite unexpectedly, made its way to the
parliament. Its leader was almost an only eminent figure in its
ranks. The public could feel the absence of both ideological and
resource background behind the party scene. The most conspicuous was
the young age and the unhampered ambitions of Orinats Yerkir
leader. They obviously broke the rules of the harsh Armenian political
game.

The situation was quite commonplace. After the conflict of the
Speaker’s party with colleagues inside the coalition and the President
became obvious, the process of intended demolition of Orinats Yerkir
was launched. The organization was charged with breaking the
`political consensus’ and failing to meet its `obligations before the
people.’ One after another, the most important party members including
the so-called oligarchs, started to leave the party.

That was not surprising: their integrity did not prevent them from
caring more about their businesses than about the party fate. After
all, they had joined it merely to create better conditions for their
businesses. And security and success of large businesses in Armenia
are only possible if they do not openly conflict with the
government. That makes the oligarchs’ motives clear.

Exiting the ruling coalition is leading Orinats Yerkir to join the
other block, the opposition one. The prospect is quite dubious for the
Speaker’s party, taking in account the current situation of the
opposition block. Opposition’ s failure to change regime in 2003-2004
has lead to its virtual impotence, to its fractionalization and
marginalization. Orinats Yerkir’s joining the opposition ranks will
hardly be appreciated, since it will be a forced and unnatural
move. Another option for the party is to act on its own. This will
also force Orinats Yerkir to join the opposition since the party has
lost its economic ground. Its leaders will have to appeal to the
oppositional clichés, such as `Say `no’ to the President, Long
live Democracy.’ These slogans proved to be ineffective in Armenia
whose population is busy looking for the stability and peace.

As far as the authorities are concerned, they will find a political
substitute for Orinats Yerkir in the near future. A probable candidate
for the role of `centrist liberals’ once assigned for the Orinats
Yerkir party could be another new party. Like Prospering Armenia that
is being hurriedly created under the auspices of oligarch Gagik
Tsarukian. It will accumulate a great number of businessmen and
relatives of acting politicians. A pre-term sacking of the parliament
is also possible. This will leave no chance for Orinats Yerkir to
regroup and consolidate before the ultimate fight.

Vigen Hakobyan is Deputy Editor-in-Chief of the REGNUM News Agency