COALITION OF OUR PETTINESS
Hakob Badalyan
Lragir
11:21:10 – 29/02/2008
The invitation for a coalition government, in almost all the home
political cases, is commendable, in the sense that it fosters
social dialogue and prevents or soothes civil disagreement. In this
sense, Serge Sargsyan’s proposal to form a coalition with all the
presidential candidates could be commendable if it did not contain
the danger which the political sphere seemed to have ridded of
after the presidential election. Before speaking about this danger,
it should be noted first that, nevertheless, in this case, the home
political situation in Armenia does not contain civil disagreement,
evidence to which is the mass flow of people from Serge Sargsyan’s
rally to Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s rally. It was evidence that there is
no disagreement among citizens. The government tried to simulate home
political disagreement through rallies in support of Serge Sargsyan
afterwards to gain the laurels for overcoming disagreement but the
citizens themselves thwarted this effort very quickly, joining together
in Yerevan.
After this the proposal on coalition becomes pointless because it is
obvious that disagreement in this case is quite distinct. It exists
between the citizens and the government. In this case, the abstract,
general offer of collaboration is nothing, and becomes a formality,
which this time lacks sufficient energy to produce an impression. The
situation would be different if Serge Sargsyan had offered a definite
proposal to Levon Ter-Petrosyan to whom the citizens "detained"
for his rally went. Now it is impossible to disagree that Levon
Ter-Petrosyan definitely leads a popular movement which is beyond any
other political activist in Armenia to keep energetic but peaceful
for already eight days. This may sound a categorical assessment but
the political forces have proven themselves that they are unable to
initiate any process except for instant bursts. The problem is other,
how Levon Ter-Petrosyan would react to Serge Sargsyan’s proposal.
Maybe he would not even wish to listen to it. In any case, it would
be clear that Serge Sargsyan has will to resolve disagreement and
tension. Meanwhile, the accent of the proposal for a coalition seems
to be on those who got some zero point percentages in the presidential
election.
It seemed that by showing the right place of these forces after
the parliamentary election a seal would be put on that place by the
presidential election. The outcome of the presidential election seemed
to seal those zero points, and the citizens finally got rid of them,
and the political sphere eventually was cleared of eternal candidates,
musical instruments, appendices and remains. If afterwards these
people decided to be nominated as an Armenian presidential candidate,
which will be so, the society would not learn about them, and only
their friends, relatives and maybe also acquaintances would be
aware, some 5 to 10 thousand people. Moreover, the "conduct" of the
election which the government "guaranteed" on February 19 had one
"attenuating circumstance". It was that the zero points got their
assessment. However, the government is now likely to eliminate the
only positive thing it did by involving zero points in a process
which will be named coalition agreement. In other words, they will
be returned to the stage. In fact, habit is the greatest tyrant. When
one gets used to destroying every negative thing, one does not spare
even the positive thing that one does.