The leader of the Armenian National Congress states that the monolith of the government is decaying or collapsing not automatically but thanks to the planned actions of other opposition forces.
One can understand the efforts of Ter-Petrosyan and the opposition to ascribe the destruction of the monolith to their own activities, the wisdom or political genius of the Congress to cooperate with the PAP. In the long run, the Congress needs to report the outputs of its activities in the past two or three years at least to its supporters so the destruction of the monolith is offered as the output of the activities of the Congress and its wisdom.
However, this output is a little exaggerated. The monolith started falling to pieces on the eve of the parliamentary election of 2012 or even earlier in 2006-2007 when Robert Kocharyan launched PAP and Vartan Oskanian. Oskanian stayed in this game for a very short time while the PAP’s debut was not effective, and the party declaring 400,000 members received only 200,000 votes and ceded the parliament to the RPA.
Robert Kocharyan’s purpose was to prevent RPA from winning absolute majority, ensure a noiseless election by means of the PAP and win majority and become prime minister and nominate Vartan Oskanian in the presidential election of 2012.
The government monolith had been destroyed before Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s return, and there was not a powerful opposition force or movement in Armenia then.
Later Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s return and emergence of a powerful opposition movement forced the government to forget about internecine disagreement and act together.
Internecine fight resumed after it was understood that the opposition is weak and unable to form the agenda of internal affairs.
After this the internal governmental duplication received international legitimacy. If in 2011 the dialogue between the Congress and Serzh Sargsyan had international legitimacy, by the end of 2011 it became clear to the international mediators of the dialogue that the Congress had run out of the resource of being an equal opponent to Serzh Sargsyan and the RPA and focused more on the PAP resource as a possible balance to Serzh Sargsyan and the RPA.
In this sense, it is a little exaggerated that the PAP is a perceived as a pro-Russian force. In this sense, Vartan Oskanian’s membership, as well as the focus of the U.S. and EU ambassadors on action brought against him are indicators.
This does not mean that the West, like Levon Ter-Petrosyan, cannot see and follow Robert Kocharyan behind the developments. The West is generally thought to fear Kocharyan’s return and only Russia supports the second president. Consequently, the West should have been absolutely indifferent to Oskanian’s destiny or think that Robert Kocharyan is not behind everything.
In reality, the situation is not that primitive. It is possible that some sets in the West do not want Robert Kocharyan’s return but the Western policy would not be that ingenuous to ignore Robert Kocharyan’s slightest presence and make no efforts to influence this factor and possibly keep it under control.
The Armenian National Congress used to think that Robert Kocharyan backed the PAP, and Davit Shanazaryan of the ANC announced this in a press conference on February 18, 2011, who was later included in the Congress delegation to the dialogue with the RPA, while after the failure of the dialogue Robert Kocharyan as if vanished from behind the PAP.
This transformation is understood though. The ANC now needs PAP’s backing because it has run into a deadlock and lost most public confidence. The Congress leader knows that they have also lost most international legitimacy and in order to have at least titular presence in the political process the Congress needs to feature in the RPA-PAP confrontation. Meanwhile, Robert Kocharyan’s name is a hindrance between the Congress and the PAP.
At the same time, it is obvious that this name has become an all-curing remedy for the Congress, not for Serzh Sargsyan, as Levon Ter-Petrosyan says. Once the Congress combats Robert Kocharyan’s return as in spring 2011, then the PAP is accused of causing instability, then the Congress says Kocharyan is scared, listing this as the output of its activities.
To sum up, the political force which claimed to institutionalize a new quality opposition and upgrade the political processes in terms of quality and content is now engaged in petty though dangerous manipulations.
This force rapidly adopted the Armenian traditional mindset dividing between ours and theirs. Although, on the other hand, this mindset had been introduced by those who quickly established nomenclature dominance in the Armenian National Congress instead of a public and civil dominance.
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