InternationalWith Yerevan municipal election, Serge Sargsian and Republicans consolidated their power
Levon Ter-Petrossian continues to be the lightening rod for the opposition, but his influence is steadily waning
Published: Friday June 19, 2009
An Armenian National Congress rally in Yerevan on June 12. Hayk Badalian / Photolure.
Yerevan - At a June 12 rally in Yerevan, former president Levon Ter-Petrossian announced that for the next three months, until September 18, the opposition Armenian National Congress will not be holding any further rallies. The leader of what is widely called "the radical opposition" appealed to other opposition forces to unite around a 12-point platform, which he read from the steps of the Matenadaran, the repository of ancient manuscripts in central Yerevan.
The platform being put forth by Armenia's first president includes some points on the country's foreign policy - concerns regarding Armenia-Turkey relations and the settlement of the Karabakh conflict. The lion's share of the platform, however deals with Armenia's domestic situation.
A common platform?
Will it be possible to unite opposition forces around this platform?
First of all, let's see who makes up the current opposition. The Armenian National Congress (HAK) continues to be the lightening rod for the opposition, but the power and influence of its leader, Mr. Ter-Petrossian, is steadily waning. The opposition Heritage Party, which supported Mr. Ter-Petrossian in the February 2008 presidential election and has supported his movement in various ways over the last year and a half, has started to become more cautious, keeping a certain distance from HAK and sometimes even publicly criticizing certain aspects of HAK's policies.
If Mr. Ter-Petrossian is ready to cooperate with the opposition, and if cooperation does not entail vertical relations - with Mr. Ter-Petrossian and HAK as the leaders, and the other opposition forces simply their satellites - then for the Heritage Party, the first 10 points of Mr. Ter-Petrossian's 12-point platform are, at the minimum, acceptable. Indeed, Heritage itself had constantly stressed that those 10 points must be realized.
Some of those points include the following:
• "Abort the conspiratorial creation of a proposed joint Armenian and Turkish historians' commission that would place the veracity of the Genocide in question"
• "Release all political prisoners"
• "Reveal and punish the real guilty parties for the tragedy of March 1"
• "Immediately re-open A1+ TV station"
• "Abolish economic monopolies and ensure all large corporations pay their taxes."
Contrary to HAK, the Heritage Party does not insist on the final two points in Mr. Ter-Petrossian's platform:
• "Conduct new parliamentary and presidential elections"
• "Demand the immediate resignation of Serge Sargsian"
"Obsolete people"
However, for the Heritage Party, what is important today is not whether the domestic and foreign policy principles of HAK and the Heritage are in tandem, but whether HAK and Mr. Ter-Petrossian are ready to cooperate with the Heritage and the other opposition forces on the basis of equals with equals.
The Heritage Party has announced many times that the May 31 municipal elections in Yerevan were conducted with widespread corruption and falsifications, with the use of intimidation and other illicit activity; however it also publicly criticizes HAK, stressing that "HAK as a political power has not yet proven itself," that it cannot represent Armenia's opposition electorate with "obsolete people."
On the one hand, HAK and its leader rule out coming to power through revolution - an about-face from their original position (see Mr. Ter-Petrossian's May 1 speech); on the other hand, they have announced that they will boycott the seats they won in the Yerevan City Council. The Heritage Party was, until recently, the only opposition party in the National Assembly, but it never boycotted the activity of the parliament.
The ARF back in opposition
In a formal sense, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutiun), with its 16 members of parliament, is also in opposition. Because the party has been part of the government in various forms for the last 11 years, it has yet to regain its credibility as an opposition force.
The ARF came out of the governing coalition after Armenia and Turkey issued a joint statement on April 22 announcing progress toward the normalization of relations.
If it is possible to envision cooperation in the opposition field, in both domestic and foreign policy issues, between the Heritage Party and the ARF, it is very difficult, even impossible, to imagine cooperation between the Armenian National Congress and the ARF.
The main obstacle is not in the parties' doctrine or ideology - the ARF sees Mr. Ter-Petrossian as soft on Karabakh and Turkey; Mr. Ter-Petrossian advocates unfettered free markets, whereas the ARF professes to be socialist - but rather their relationship in the not-so-distant past. In the early and mid-1990s, Mr. Ter-Petrossian as president persecuted the ARF, and imprisoned its leaders.
Times and circumstances have changed; today Mr. Ter-Petrossian is traveling along the thorny path that he had forced the ARF to traverse years earlier. Mr. Ter-Petrossian's lieutenants are drinking from the same bitter cup that he had forced the leadership of the ARF to drink from.
No prospect of cooperation
Unlike the Heritage Party, which is ready in principle to cooperate with HAK and the ARF, the ARF is not ready to cooperate with HAK. Vahan Hovhanessian, a member of the ARF Bureau, stated: "Ter-Petrossian cannot cooperate with anyone - because he is not in the role of ‘father' and not a single normal citizen of Armenia can see him in the role of ‘father.' In this regard we have nothing to talk to him about, nor any general field of cooperation."
If the ARF can persuade the public that it is truly an opposition force - as the public believed it to be in the 1990s - then the party can participate in the 2011 parliamentary elections with greater expectations. Today, however, the statements made by certain leaders and intellectuals within the party have created some confusion among the public. It is more intent on criticizing other opposition parties than it is on criticizing the authorities.
