Is a dialogue between the government and opposition possible?

05-05-2008 10:36:14 – KarabakhOpen

The first president of Armenia Levon Ter-Petrosyan in fact blames the
ex-president of Armenia Robert Kocharyan for the pre-election and
post-election events. In his address to the second congress of the
Popular Movement he said Serge Sargsyan could have prevented some
events but on the whole he could not influence Robert Kocharyan.

Thereby Levon Ter-Petrosyan confirmed the end of the epoch of Robert
Kocharyan, the person about whom little is heard after departure from
office of president but whose spirit is still felt in all the political
processes.

After inauguration Serge Sargsyan also stated likelihood to put an end
to the epoch of Robert Kocharyan. He said he is likely to carry out
reforms in all the spheres. As a chief reformer, he chose Tigran
Sargsyan, the ex-president of the Central Bank, who is believed to be
aware of the modern tendencies in economy and politics. It is difficult
to predict what the prime minister Tigran Sargsyan will achieve in the
development of economy but the past was assessed, and the assessment is
that the policy conducted so far was not appropriate.

Even the parliament confessed that in the foreign policy, particularly
regarding the settlement of the Karabakh issue, the policy of Armenia
was passive. Otherwise, in its statement the parliament would not
recommend the president to be more `pro-active’ with regard to the
Karabakh issue.

In this context, ostensibly the opposition may agree to a dialogue with
the government and even set up a coalition. The threat of the Council
of Europe to impose sanctions may force the government to take this
step, and the opposition may get a chance to come to power. It is
possible that the government will agree to hold an early parliamentary
election and involve the All-Armenian Movement in the parliament,
possibly replacing the Orinats Yerkir Party which has already performed
its mission. Most probably, most people arrested for March 1 will be
amnestied by June.

And in that case the Armenian society may witness interesting events.
The opposition will be involved in the parliament, reforms will be
carried out in the country, the state of freedom of speech will
improve, the Western countries will become kinder and `raise’ the
scores of our country. However, the system of government will not
change, neither will do the priorities of foreign and internal
policies. Besides, the gas pipeline Iran-Armenia will remain with
Russia and will hardly work.

The first moves of Tigran Sargsyan are evidence that the reforms are
not meant to change the system how the government deals with economy.
He made the tax and customs systems even tougher thinking about
refilling the state budget and `battle against corruption’ but not
thinking about the businessmen who are the victims of both systems.
Tigran Sargsyan did not declare liberalization of economy, which would
allow developing small and medium-sized businesses. He also continues
to encourage the Central Bank which encourages the `floating’ rate of
the dollar. He underlined that inflation in Armenia over the past few
months has been lower than in the neighboring countries. However, the
prime minister forgot to remind that in Armenia inflation occurred
1.5-2 years ago when the rate of the dollar in the neighboring
countries was stable.

One way or another, the results of the recent processes in Armenia were
two, one is good, the other is bad. The first is the division between
`friends’ and `aliens’ in a black and white gamma, the second is the
rebirth of the free `student’ spirit which cannot be stopped any more.
And it is the second rather than the first that both the opposition and
the government fear.

We can only guess how deep the spirit of `Kocharyanism’ is in the
present government thanks to which this spirit was sustained. And how
strong the influence of the ex-president on the policies of the present
government is, even indirectly, via `third’ countries.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress