UNANSWERED QUESTIONS: PRESIDENT SARGSYAN’S 1ST YEAR IN OFFICE
Gevorg Darbinyan

Feature Stories politics
2009/04/20 | 19:15

On April 9, 2008, Serzh Sargsyan was thrust onto the stage of total
responsibility. Until then, he was subsumed in the shadows cast
by Robert Kocharyan. Come the presidential elections of 2008, the
current president used this factor to wash his hands of assuming
responsibility of the former president’s actions. Despite this,
Serzh Sargsyan inherited a somber reality of a debilitated internal
social, moral-psychological, and political structure resulting from
the cataclysm that was March 1st. One would have assumed that that at
the top of the list of priorities of the new president in his first
year in office would be to wipe away the ruins left in its wake,
to instill confidence in overcoming the crisis and neutralizing the
legitimacy deficit of the regime both internally and externally. Today,
however, precisely one year after Serzh Sargsyan de-jure assumed the
presidency, not only have the existing problems not been answered but
new questions have arisen. This state of affairs exists on all levels.

Social Life

The removal of the existing polarization, perhaps, should have
been at the top of the president’s list of issues to tackle. Serzh
Sargsyan’s call for public dialogue however didn’t elicit an adequate
reaction. The problem was that the continued criminal and political
persecution of opposition activists for the events of March 1 and
widespread arrest weren’t exactly confidence builders. This was even
more the case as all this was accompanied by the traditional way of
doing business; by planting new mines on the part of the so-called
"patriotic opposition".

This went to show that in reality the issue at hand was to blockade
the uniform opposition field at all levels and thus achieve the
political demise of the chief rival. The "Public Council", a body with
no constitutional basis, was also designed to serve this end. After
much delay, it was finally launched one year after being declared by
presidential decree. This body was created to only resolve publicity
issues and moreover it devalued the concept of parliamentarianism in
general. This became especially apparent after it was revealed that
not only was the "cream" of the palace intellectuals to be appointed as
Council members but also members of those same disreputable "patriotic"
pseudo-opposition forces.

Internal Political Motivation

These measures couldn’t really satisfy the demands of the regime
because in the background there appeared the long ears of populism for
all to se. Serzh Sargsyan was confronted with two immediate issues. The
first problem was not to allow the united opposition to get stronger
anew. The second was, despite the presence of a ruling coalition,
to create conditions leading to the status of an independent player
and to get free from the dependence on his partners.

To resolve the first issue the "March 1st Seven" case was
used. First, the preliminary examination of this case dragged on
to the extreme. Then, the court examination period, with the direct
participation of the defendants, turned into a veritable comedy, a
farce. In the end, when there were no longer any external pressures
to be worried about, the case was split up, transferring its political
context into a purely criminal matter.

Of course, from this angle, all the expectations of the regime weren’t
realized. The unexpected move by Levon Ter-Petrosyan to enter the
Yerevan City Council race turned things upside down and reshuffled
the deck. Serzh Sargsyan was again confronted with the priority of
withstanding the struggle being waged by the united opposition. In
other words, the "March 1st Seven" case performed it function only
temporarily.

Regarding the strengthening of his own political influence and getting
out from under the dependence of the coalition forces, the achievements
of Serzh Sargsyan in this context are more apparent. First, he
finally and perhaps irreversibly placed the Republican Party which he
governed firmly within his pocket, not allowing any semblance of an
internal alternative tendency or the possibility of the manifestation
of dissent.

The removal of Tigran Torosyan as National Assembly president and
the "appointment" of Hovik Abrahamyan in his stead solved that very
issue. After taking over the Republican Party of Armenia (HHK), he
went about forming his own political team and relied on the youth
oriented MIAK party to accomplish this. By bringing the young leaders
of this party into his team and into the circles of state government,
Serzh Sargsyan raised the authority level of MIAK and its political
impact. Today, it is apparent that the party is preparing for the
2011 parliamentary elections.

All the while, Serzh Sargsyan was doing all possible to free himself
from the shadow cast by former President Robert Kocharyan. Sargsyan’s
speech at the last Prosperous Armenia Party congress, the position
adopted by that party and Kocharyan’s response about the possibility of
his return to the "big political game", all showed that the current
president adroitly solved that problem, at least for the foreseeable
future.

By appointing Gagik Beglaryan to the post of Yerevan mayor just two
and a half months before the city council elections, Sargsyan proved
to the coalition forces that he is in total control of the situation
and is not dependent on their viewpoints or state of mind.

Socio-economic sector

After assuming the presidency, it became clear that the process of
social passivity would lead to transforming political intolerance
into social expectations. And the new president immediately set out to
recognize and fulfill these needs, at least on a superficial level. The
continuous arrest of mid-level government bureaucrats was aimed at
proving that the regime was serious in fighting against corruption.

However, this process of going after the "small fries" didn’t lead to
catching any "sharks", and thus it was clear to all that the regime’s
anti-corruption campaign was more publicity-driven than a serious
drive to weed out top-level corruption. What also proved that social
issues were merely being tackled superficially was the drafting and
passage of the state budget in 2009. Even though in the last quarter
of 2008 there arose many difficulties in ensuring budgetary inflows,
not only did the 2009 budget increase in relative terms but in terms
of expenditures there was a definite focus on social items; wages,
pensions and other items saw increases.

By the first month of 2009 it became apparent that it wouldn’t be
possible to execute the accepted budget and that the deficit was
much larger than planned for. And while the government declared that
social expenditures would continue apace, what is happening today is
that these costs are being incurred at the expense of other budgetary
items that are being delayed or cancelled outright. We will experience
the effect of this process in the fall when the "birds come home
to roost". Parallel to this, as of the end of 2008 the RoA Central
Bank adopted an incorrect policy regarding the regulation of the
financial market sector when it went the route of a fixed exchange
rate in order to prevent drastic inflationary rises. As a result,
the nation’s financial reserves decreased by some $400 million.

By returning to a floating rate, the government finally was forced to
accept a 25% price rise and a drastic devaluation of the Armenian dram
as a given, with all the social and economic consequences that resulted
from such a process. In other words, the social sector targeting of the
budget offered nothing to those it was designed to assist, especially
the most socially vulnerable classes. Simultaneously, by strengthening
the tax-related bureaucracy, the government brought those engaging
in private enterprise into the taxable sector. The implementation of
cash registers was closely scrutinized which essentially increased
the tax burden of small and mid-sized businesses. This lead to an
expansion of large enterprises; they basically gobbled-up their smaller
competitors. What resulted, even given the conditions of such a heavy
crisis, was that the government failed to remove economic monopolies,
the freeing up of the market and ensuring market competition.

Foreign affairs

A more active foreign policy was readily apparent. Serzh Sargsyan
made good on his promise to adopt a more pro-active approach which
is to be seen on two fronts in particular – Armenian-Turkish and
Armenia-Azerbaijani affairs. In conjunction with settling the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the Prague process lead to the signing
of the Moscow Declaration and later the Helsinki accords at the end
of 2008.

These reaffirmed that Nagorno-Karabakh wasn’t a party to the
negotiations and that the principle of national self-determination
was applicable only in the context of territorial integrity.

However, as a result of Armenia’s pro-active stance, the
Azerbaijani side put into circulation a rather incomprehensible
thesis regarding the joint coexistence of Armenian and Azeri
communities in Nagorno-Karabakh, and given the stony silence of the
Armenian side, it stubbornly began to defend it during the ongoing
negotiations. Official Yerevan stated nothing more than the right of
the people of Nagorno-Karabakh to self-determination must be respected,
without noting whether or not such self-determination could be realized
within the framework of Azerbaijan.

Turkey, on the other hand, became more involved in the Karabakh
settlement process than ever before during the past year. The foreign
ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan met under the auspices of Turkey
and the Minsk Group co-chairs underlined the constructive role of
Turkey in the settlement process on several occasions.

In essence, two totally dissimilar processes took place – the merger of
the Armenian-Turkish thaw and the resolution of the Karabakh-Azerbaijan
conflict. This new hybrid process soon took on regional import.

The foundation for this was laid immediately after the five day
Russian-Georgian war in August, 2008, when Turkey, attempting to divvy
up the region with Russia, floated the concept of creating a Caucasus
Stability and Cooperation Platform with the assistance of Russia and
began to bring it to life based on its own national interests.

Armenia was drawn in to these processes spontaneously; being forced
to assume the status of one whose only role is to react. Furthermore,
the initiatives of Armenia served as the basis for the recognition
of the Armenian Genocide on the world stage to be pushed to the
background to a certain degree.

Recently, while in Istanbul, U.S. President Barack Obama made it
pretty clear that if Armenia and Turkey showed true political will
regarding the opening of the b order and resolving other outstanding
issues, then it was possible that he wouldn’t describe the events
of 1915 as "genocide"; that’s to say he wouldn’t honor his election
campaign pledge.

The only positive result of these processes can be seen as the measures
being taken to open the Armenian-Turkish border. For this to occur,
in essence, what remains is to overcome the powerful pressure exerted
by Azerbaijan on Turkey; pressure which Turkey seems unable to free
itself from. As to what price will Yerevan pay in return for the
border opening, today, no one can say.

Whatever the case, it is possible to state that the social uncertainty
in both the internal and external political sectors as well as in
socio-economic terms hasn’t lessened during the past year. Looming on
the horizon is the super-politicized Yerevan city council election. The
sitting president is confronted with the challenge of coming out of
the election with his honor intact. The election will either bolster
Armenia’s credibility on the world stage or undermine it even further.

The second year of a Serzh Sargsyan presidency must be one in which
answers are provided to these mounting problems that the nation faces.