SYCOPHANTS ARE THE FIRST TO BETRAY AT DIFFICULT MOMENTS
Gevorg Haroutyunyan

Hayots Ashkhar Daily
01 Oct 2008
Armenia

Interview with MP VICTOR DALLAKYAN

"Do you yourselves see the 36 individuals who can remain objective
and impartial, oppose the country’s President and the other state
officials?"

"I am sure that the most difficult task at this point falls to the
lot of the President of the country. Out of the 36 members of the
Public Council, 12 are going to be appointed by him. I am sure that
the President will select such people who will really be able to
contradict or oppose him.

If those 12 members are people who are only going to fawn on the
President, this institute will never become accomplished.

During the very first session of the committee Serge Sargsyan
emphasized this fact. The ‘army’ of those fawning on the President
and the other officials is very big as it is, and there is no need
to create a new structure for enlarging it still further.

Besides, that poses danger to the President himself. History proves
that the sycophants are always the first to betray, and they always
appear in the ‘army’ of the opposite side. I don’t think the President
of our country needs new Brutuses.

But finding 12 impartial and honest individuals is really very
difficult.

Unfortunately, there are no Sakharovs or Solzhenitsins in 0AArmenia,
and many estimable representatives of the intelligentsia became
politicized in the early 1990’s for well-known reasons."

"Mr. Dallakyan, is the Public Chamber just a linking channel between
the President and the people or an attempt of introducing moral
standards to the political domain and restoring moral values in
politics."

"I approve of the Public Chamber’s role you sketched in the second part
of your question. A structure set up under the President of the country
does not really have unlimited competences,and can be influential and
effective only due to its moral power. I am sure that the civil society
will become accomplished when the moral values are prevalent. If the
political circles in our country were guided by those values and the
state government and local government systems worked efficiently,
there would be no need to set up such structure under the President.

After all, it is an axiomatic truth that the authorities are created
for ensuring the welfare of their own people. Of course, this problem
isn’t solved by setting up separate structures, because the existing
non-governmental structures may contribute to or hamper the process
of the implementation of the authorities’ main tasks."