EVERYTHING IS POSSIBLE IN POLITICS
Hayots Ashkhar Daily
03 Sep 2008
Armenia
In the press conference held yesterday, L. Ter-Petrosyan made several
interesting statements.
Who will be LTP’s legal successor, i.e. the leader of the
"opposition"? Stepan Demirtchyan or David Shahnazaryan? The speaker
was very displeased to answer this question. "There is no point in
speaking about the names of individuals today. Individuals do not
matter to me. It so happened that I am at the head of the movement at
present. For me, the important thing is to strengthen the movement and
make it a permanent political factor in Armenia. As to the leader,
it is always possible to find one. And that leader will be the most
deserving person. Make no doubt about it!"
How is the ex-President going to achieve the realization of the
principal slogan of the upcoming demonstration, i.e. the resignation
of Serge Sargsyan? "I wouldn’t like to make it a simple and primitive
matter.
What is known as a principal slogan is nothing more than a slogan
which implies large-scale work on a horizontal level and in different
directions.
The essence of our activity consists in strengthening the movement,
i.e. bringing the congress into existence, and that will spontaneously
lead to a shift of power; that’s true. It will lead to the resignation
of Serge Sargsyan.
It’s not that we demanded his resignation, and he resigned. No one
ever resigns from his post in that way. Serge Sargsyan should, at
some moment, see that he is not accepted by an organized group of
society vs. some uncertain mass of people, and that he cannot rule
this country any more," the leader-congressman replied.
To what extent is the leader’s innermost desire realistic? "I
strive for that. Whether or not I will manage to do that is known
to God only. I am a modest person, and I have never overestimated
my potentials. I have only set a task, an objective. If I achieve
its realization, that will be good; if not, that will not be the end
of the world. There are also some people who think that we will not
reach our aim under any circumstances," the speaker said, returning
to the harsh reality.
And, forgetting about the bitter experience of 1996, he became
sincerely astonished: can one stick to the throne so persistently? "The
so-called power, the practice of sticking to power is characteristic
to the criminal authorities only. Authorities which are honest never
stick to power."
The authorities, in his opinion, "are facing a problem in terms of
communicating with society and being acceptable to that society"
and not him or the "pan-national movement.
To be honest, we are facing a problem too. If the situation has come
to dead end, it is true for both parties.=2 076 of our friends are
now in prison, and the international community tolerates that. As to
how long they will remain tolerant I don’t know it, but there is not
yet anyone standing on their way."
One of the journalists tried to figure out whether the speaker
considered Robert Kocharyan as a potential rival on the way of his
further progress.
"What if I say I didn’t understand the question? I haven’t been engaged
in politics for 10 years. I was engaged in scholarly activity during
the past 10 years and wasn’t the rival of anyone in all that period.
That’s all.
To be a political rival means to run for election. I don’t know what
Robert Kocharyan is doing now. He is not engaged in politics. When
he starts his political activity again, and I continue my political
activity too, we’ll become rivals. It’s quite possible that we may
become allies at some moment. Everything is possible in politics,"
Mr. Ter-Petrosyan said, trying to sound sharp-witted.
And in order not to be "misunderstood", he added, "This was a joke,
but such strange things are really possible in politics." And the
evidence is the ex-President’s second advent and the incredibly high
result he attained in the elections.
With regard to the rumors on Robert Kocharyan’s return, the
ex-President said "I am very sorry, and I don’t=2 0want you to think
that I avoid giving an answer, but these are gossips. And I am not in
the habit of interpreting gossips and making judgments about them. When
he returns to politics, we’ll talk about it," the founding-chairman
said, changing the subject of the conversation.