"A LEADER SHOULD BE AWARE OF EVERYTHING" /HRANUSH KHARATIAN/

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[11:22 am] 13 November, 2007

On which criteria should the Armenian people elect a president? Does
a person’s appearance, programme and adherents matter? We tried to
find answers to these questions from ethnographer Hranush Kharatian.

"Our society is polarized. Various strata of the society have different
stance to the issue. Most Armneians are politically illeterate,
they are ignorant of political developments. They think a president
must be endowed with unique qualities and capable of solving any
problem. Therefore they want to elect a person who can be available
any moment," Hranush Kharatian says.

Ms Kharatian divides leaders into two groups – ideal and practical. "An
ideal leader should be kind-hearted, unbiased and concessive while
a practical leader should be capable of tackling problems. It is
generally believed that Armenians are fond of kings but I wouldn’t
say so. If we recall our history we can see that revolts were mainly
incited from inside, by separate groups. Love for a king implies
obedience while our people lack this characteristics.

In my opinion, a real president must be apt to succeed. He must love
his people and his country. He must be aware of the country’s problems.