TER-PETROSYAN – A POLITICAL STAR
Harutyun Gevorgyan
Hayots Ashkharh Daily
Oct 10 2007
Armenia
But From The Previous Century
Interview with the MP of the National Assembly Armen Ashotyan
"Mr. Ashotyan can we state that the developments in the internal
political arena are conditioned only by the forthcoming presidential
elections and don’t have any profound significance?"
" It is quite natural that both the internal and external political
developments are first of all conditioned by the upcoming presidential
elections. But here we can separate two types of approaches. Some
political powers, the number of which is less than desired, are well
conscious about their goal and how they are going to be represented
in the elections, by whose leadership they are going to start their
campaign.
It is also clear for those powers, what should the succession of
the steps be in order to win the elections, what program should they
introduce to win the people’s vote of confidence and finally who is
the candidate for presidency who will shoulder the responsibility of
implementing this program.
The largest sector of the political arena also realizes that they
must do something before the presidential elections but they don’t
know exactly what. Society anticipates certain actions from the
political powers, but many of the parties haven’t oriented themselves
yet. Overwhelming majority of the political powers hasn’t yet found
answers to many questions and they don’t even think about winning.
The before mentioned phenomena will be more vivid during the official
nominations for presidency, registrations and the campaign.
Anyway the parties with sensible political approaches have time to
orient themselves. I mean those powers that are able to criticize
themselves, not those whose political activity is an end in itself.
They should do their bests not to find themselves in a ridiculous
situation.
I don’t think there will be any unexpected nominations.
Occasionally people listen to tasteless music but they always prefer
to participate serious concerts. During the coming elections as well
the candidates that turn the elections process into a show can arouse
interest, and on this background serious political programs will
become more preferable. During the political choice the important
and the trustworthy is always more preferable than the entertaining."
"Mr. Ashotyan do you think Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s meetings first with
Dashnaktsutyun then with Vazgen Manukyan is a political show or a
political process?"
" Some people want to attach an artificial political timbre to those
meetings, others consider it a cheap show. For me both stances are
unacceptable. The first President of Armenia is simply exercising
his constitutional right and has submitted a claim to return to the
political arena. His silence during the previous ten years makes him
more interesting. Many people think that the rest period of those
ten years contributed to the re-evaluation of the path bygone.
Levon Ter-Petrosyan is a political star of the 20th century."