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"To be or not to be": another Shakespeare-style post-election drama in Armenia
by Martin Jermakyan
http://www.reporter.am/go/article/2013-03-07--to-be-or-not-to-be--another-shakespeare-style-post-election-drama-in-armenia
Published: Thursday March 07, 2013
Serge Sargsyan and Raffi Hovannisian meet after the election. Photolure
"Marcellus: Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Horatio: Heaven will direct it."
>From William Shakespeare's "Hamlet"
A question that begs to be asked is if you do the same experiment
under the same conditions five times, and for four times you get
identical results, what is there to suggest that the fifth time it
will produce a different result?
This question is of high practical relevance to the Armenian reality -
both within the confines of the Republic and Diaspora. However,
Diaspora is not the subject of this article and the arrow of the quick
thoughts released herein is pointed at the Republic even though when
speaking of the experiments conducted by the Diaspora their number may
be not in the range of five but fifty.
Raffi Hovannisyan, with all due respect for his demeanor and conduct
and for his introduction of a not greater-than-life ego on the
Armenian political landscape, has given strong indications that he is
not really interested in holding the position of the President of
Armenia - at least as far as the president's governing functions are
concerned. At best he is positioning himself as a Minister of Foreign
Affairs even if hypothetically speaking Serge Sargisyan would
surrender the post of presidency to him. Maybe Mr. Hovannisyan is
simply soberly assessing the reality in terms of what it takes to
govern over the Republic of Armenia. If yes then it is commendable.
In essence his offer to President Sargisyan is equivalent to the
latter's maintenance of shadow presidency continuing to govern over
the country. And while claiming to pretend to be Armenia's President
Mr. Hovannisyan proposes to help Mr. Sargisyan to stage a radical
shift of country's foreign policy from Ter-Petrosyan-Libaridyan
paradigms to a paradigm kin to that of Hovannisyan senior and ARF -
with all due respect to the latter two.
Meanwhile Mr. Hovannisyan's serenades addressed to Mr. Sargisyan sound
like guarantees of security and immunity offered to Mr. Sargisyan and
perhaps his extended family. But logically Mr. Sargisyan doesn't need
to become a shadow president while he retains in his hands all the
levers of governance over the Republic and beyond. If he agrees with
Mr. Hovannisyan's foreign policy agenda and paradigms as it pertains
in particular to Turkey and Karabagh, he will implement them himself
and without the creation of an apparatus of a make-believe presidency.
Mr. Hovannisyan's negotiations, post-electoral tactics and his
self-positioning for the future developments in Armenia seem focused
on proving that `he was right' and his foreign policy paradigms were
unduly dismissed by Ter-Petrosyan culminated in his dismissal from the
post of the foreign minister of Armenia in early nineties.
All evidence suggests that President Sargisyan does not think that the
Ter-Petrosyan-Libaridyan foreign policy paradigms have exhausted
themselves and he will continue this line until there is strong
evidence in favor of a U-turn. This is also perhaps why the
Ter-Petrosyan team has not given its backing to Mr. Hovannisyan so
far.
The same resource base for governance
Mr. Hovannisyan didn't have the resources to appoint his trusted
representatives for monitoring purposes into almost half of the
electoral stations of Armenia. I would appreciate an explanation as to
how he is going to mass the resources needed in order to govern a
zoo-like country such as Armenia - that is, of course, if he is not
counting on Mr. Sargisyan to fulfill the mission of daily governance
with the utilization of currently available to the latter resources.
The sad reality of things which even Mr. Sargisyan cannot afford not
to take into consideration is that there is a finite number of people
in Armenia, maybe up to some twenty thousand, currently involved and,
for better or worse, capable of performing daily governance functions.
They constitute an inheritance from Soviet Armenia or have been
wittingly or unwittingly incubated in Ter-Petrosyan era but have been
truly unleashed in Kocharyan era of chieftainship and feudalization.
They are apolitical, flexible and mobile and when needed they join the
roles of the needed party.
This is how All-Armenia National Movement got its critical mass in its
good old days and this is why it got corrupted afterwards. This is
also how the currently ruling Republican Party of Armenia got its
human resources on mass scale - from All-Armenian National Movement in
the second half of 1990s - overseen by late Vazgen Sargsyan. This
shift was finalized when Serge Sargsyan combined the roles of
president and the Republican Party leader.
If by some divine miracle tomorrow Mr. Hovannisyan is going to indeed
become the President of Armenia or `Zharangutiun' is going to become
the ruling party, the bureaucratic apparatus is going to switch
overnight to the latter and `Zharangutiun' is going to have no choice
but to take them in due to its lack of any other alternatives for
governance. One can confidently conjecture that if Mr. Hovannisyan was
able to govern Armenia post-elections he would've been able to take
the elections with all the outrageous violations that there were.
However, it is noteworthy that time has come for a generational shift
in Armenia's governing structure and personnel as a consequence of the
aging of the current rulers, expiration of their constitutional
eligibility mandate for further governance and exhaustion of the
current modus operandi of governance. However the puzzle is where to
take the corresponding resources from.
Can Serge and Raffi cooperate on political transition?
The important question on the Armenian political landscape today is
not whether Mr. Hovannisyan can force Mr. Sargisyan to accept the
results of elections the way Mr. Hovannisyan perhaps not without basis
thinks he should. This question has a very concise answer - he cannot.
While pretending to be a democratic country, and even though enjoying
a rather high degree of freedom of speech and freedom of thinking,
Armenia is a barricaded country and the culture of no war-no peace
governs over her.
The important question is how the coming five years are going to be
utilized for the transition of Armenia to a civic society while
maintaining a defensive capacity a strong and adequate to the existing
and emerging threats? How is the generational shift going to be
implemented and how new operational, administrative, economic and
foreign policy paradigms are going to be shaped and managed in Armenia
when the structure of existing military and geopolitical balance is
changing, turning the region Armenia belongs to into the most volatile
one? This is no small matter.
When all talk around the respective coffee tables in Armenia and
Diaspora has exhausted itself this is what is going to define the
quality and pace of transition.
If there is something Mr. Hovannisyan can accomplish is a consensus
with Mr. Sargisyan on organized transition to a new political culture
within the coming five years and thereafter. Mr. Hovannisyan can also
have a strong influence over this process. With all the due criticism
and available dissatisfaction with both Mr. Sargisyan and Mr.
Hovannisyan, they are both patriots. They are also not egomaniacs,
making achievement of constructive results possible.
Mr. Hovannisyan and Mr. Sargsyan can help accelerate the formation of
nonpartisan youth civic organizations in Armenia emerged as a bright
light on the Armenian landscape as of late. They can render support to
these organizations simply by not hampering or corrupting their
evolution and without interference and attempts to turn them into
political pawns in some chess games. Let these civic organizations, as
infant as they are today, define their political posturing themselves
when required. Too many artificial political parties and civic
organizations have been coopted by the government and opposition. Mr.
Sargisyan and Mr. Hovannisyan should help the non-partisan youth
exercise due ownership rights over Armenia for Armenia to have future.
And the timing is right.
President Sargisyan has seen it all from day one of the new Armenian
Renaissance in late 1980s and he has it all. All he has left to worry
about is the legacy he will have to leave behind when gone. He should
support the orderly transformation of Armenia from what is a
para-militarized governing structure to a civic constitutional one.
And this doesn't have to be at the expense of an even stronger
Armenian army. This is not a zero-sum game. Civic society and a
strong army can coexist. In fact the army will get only stronger when
instead of the generals the solders and the ones who support them feel
that they are the owners of the country.
Mr. Hovannisyan can be very instrumental in helping the accomplishment
of this mission and the history of Armenia will glorify him more for
its success than for a failed presidency. Meanwhile he is in a tough
spat too - damned if you engage in a constructive dialog, damned if
you escalate confrontation and damned if you get out of the stage all
together. In either case, form a personal point of view, Mr.
Hovannisyan doesn't have a good alternative - he has to choose who he
would rather make angry and what purpose he would rather serve. It
remains to hope that being a patriot and a civilized man he will make
the right choice.
From: A. Papazian
by Martin Jermakyan
http://www.reporter.am/go/article/2013-03-07--to-be-or-not-to-be--another-shakespeare-style-post-election-drama-in-armenia
Published: Thursday March 07, 2013
Serge Sargsyan and Raffi Hovannisian meet after the election. Photolure
"Marcellus: Something is rotten in the state of Denmark.
Horatio: Heaven will direct it."
>From William Shakespeare's "Hamlet"
A question that begs to be asked is if you do the same experiment
under the same conditions five times, and for four times you get
identical results, what is there to suggest that the fifth time it
will produce a different result?
This question is of high practical relevance to the Armenian reality -
both within the confines of the Republic and Diaspora. However,
Diaspora is not the subject of this article and the arrow of the quick
thoughts released herein is pointed at the Republic even though when
speaking of the experiments conducted by the Diaspora their number may
be not in the range of five but fifty.
Raffi Hovannisyan, with all due respect for his demeanor and conduct
and for his introduction of a not greater-than-life ego on the
Armenian political landscape, has given strong indications that he is
not really interested in holding the position of the President of
Armenia - at least as far as the president's governing functions are
concerned. At best he is positioning himself as a Minister of Foreign
Affairs even if hypothetically speaking Serge Sargisyan would
surrender the post of presidency to him. Maybe Mr. Hovannisyan is
simply soberly assessing the reality in terms of what it takes to
govern over the Republic of Armenia. If yes then it is commendable.
In essence his offer to President Sargisyan is equivalent to the
latter's maintenance of shadow presidency continuing to govern over
the country. And while claiming to pretend to be Armenia's President
Mr. Hovannisyan proposes to help Mr. Sargisyan to stage a radical
shift of country's foreign policy from Ter-Petrosyan-Libaridyan
paradigms to a paradigm kin to that of Hovannisyan senior and ARF -
with all due respect to the latter two.
Meanwhile Mr. Hovannisyan's serenades addressed to Mr. Sargisyan sound
like guarantees of security and immunity offered to Mr. Sargisyan and
perhaps his extended family. But logically Mr. Sargisyan doesn't need
to become a shadow president while he retains in his hands all the
levers of governance over the Republic and beyond. If he agrees with
Mr. Hovannisyan's foreign policy agenda and paradigms as it pertains
in particular to Turkey and Karabagh, he will implement them himself
and without the creation of an apparatus of a make-believe presidency.
Mr. Hovannisyan's negotiations, post-electoral tactics and his
self-positioning for the future developments in Armenia seem focused
on proving that `he was right' and his foreign policy paradigms were
unduly dismissed by Ter-Petrosyan culminated in his dismissal from the
post of the foreign minister of Armenia in early nineties.
All evidence suggests that President Sargisyan does not think that the
Ter-Petrosyan-Libaridyan foreign policy paradigms have exhausted
themselves and he will continue this line until there is strong
evidence in favor of a U-turn. This is also perhaps why the
Ter-Petrosyan team has not given its backing to Mr. Hovannisyan so
far.
The same resource base for governance
Mr. Hovannisyan didn't have the resources to appoint his trusted
representatives for monitoring purposes into almost half of the
electoral stations of Armenia. I would appreciate an explanation as to
how he is going to mass the resources needed in order to govern a
zoo-like country such as Armenia - that is, of course, if he is not
counting on Mr. Sargisyan to fulfill the mission of daily governance
with the utilization of currently available to the latter resources.
The sad reality of things which even Mr. Sargisyan cannot afford not
to take into consideration is that there is a finite number of people
in Armenia, maybe up to some twenty thousand, currently involved and,
for better or worse, capable of performing daily governance functions.
They constitute an inheritance from Soviet Armenia or have been
wittingly or unwittingly incubated in Ter-Petrosyan era but have been
truly unleashed in Kocharyan era of chieftainship and feudalization.
They are apolitical, flexible and mobile and when needed they join the
roles of the needed party.
This is how All-Armenia National Movement got its critical mass in its
good old days and this is why it got corrupted afterwards. This is
also how the currently ruling Republican Party of Armenia got its
human resources on mass scale - from All-Armenian National Movement in
the second half of 1990s - overseen by late Vazgen Sargsyan. This
shift was finalized when Serge Sargsyan combined the roles of
president and the Republican Party leader.
If by some divine miracle tomorrow Mr. Hovannisyan is going to indeed
become the President of Armenia or `Zharangutiun' is going to become
the ruling party, the bureaucratic apparatus is going to switch
overnight to the latter and `Zharangutiun' is going to have no choice
but to take them in due to its lack of any other alternatives for
governance. One can confidently conjecture that if Mr. Hovannisyan was
able to govern Armenia post-elections he would've been able to take
the elections with all the outrageous violations that there were.
However, it is noteworthy that time has come for a generational shift
in Armenia's governing structure and personnel as a consequence of the
aging of the current rulers, expiration of their constitutional
eligibility mandate for further governance and exhaustion of the
current modus operandi of governance. However the puzzle is where to
take the corresponding resources from.
Can Serge and Raffi cooperate on political transition?
The important question on the Armenian political landscape today is
not whether Mr. Hovannisyan can force Mr. Sargisyan to accept the
results of elections the way Mr. Hovannisyan perhaps not without basis
thinks he should. This question has a very concise answer - he cannot.
While pretending to be a democratic country, and even though enjoying
a rather high degree of freedom of speech and freedom of thinking,
Armenia is a barricaded country and the culture of no war-no peace
governs over her.
The important question is how the coming five years are going to be
utilized for the transition of Armenia to a civic society while
maintaining a defensive capacity a strong and adequate to the existing
and emerging threats? How is the generational shift going to be
implemented and how new operational, administrative, economic and
foreign policy paradigms are going to be shaped and managed in Armenia
when the structure of existing military and geopolitical balance is
changing, turning the region Armenia belongs to into the most volatile
one? This is no small matter.
When all talk around the respective coffee tables in Armenia and
Diaspora has exhausted itself this is what is going to define the
quality and pace of transition.
If there is something Mr. Hovannisyan can accomplish is a consensus
with Mr. Sargisyan on organized transition to a new political culture
within the coming five years and thereafter. Mr. Hovannisyan can also
have a strong influence over this process. With all the due criticism
and available dissatisfaction with both Mr. Sargisyan and Mr.
Hovannisyan, they are both patriots. They are also not egomaniacs,
making achievement of constructive results possible.
Mr. Hovannisyan and Mr. Sargsyan can help accelerate the formation of
nonpartisan youth civic organizations in Armenia emerged as a bright
light on the Armenian landscape as of late. They can render support to
these organizations simply by not hampering or corrupting their
evolution and without interference and attempts to turn them into
political pawns in some chess games. Let these civic organizations, as
infant as they are today, define their political posturing themselves
when required. Too many artificial political parties and civic
organizations have been coopted by the government and opposition. Mr.
Sargisyan and Mr. Hovannisyan should help the non-partisan youth
exercise due ownership rights over Armenia for Armenia to have future.
And the timing is right.
President Sargisyan has seen it all from day one of the new Armenian
Renaissance in late 1980s and he has it all. All he has left to worry
about is the legacy he will have to leave behind when gone. He should
support the orderly transformation of Armenia from what is a
para-militarized governing structure to a civic constitutional one.
And this doesn't have to be at the expense of an even stronger
Armenian army. This is not a zero-sum game. Civic society and a
strong army can coexist. In fact the army will get only stronger when
instead of the generals the solders and the ones who support them feel
that they are the owners of the country.
Mr. Hovannisyan can be very instrumental in helping the accomplishment
of this mission and the history of Armenia will glorify him more for
its success than for a failed presidency. Meanwhile he is in a tough
spat too - damned if you engage in a constructive dialog, damned if
you escalate confrontation and damned if you get out of the stage all
together. In either case, form a personal point of view, Mr.
Hovannisyan doesn't have a good alternative - he has to choose who he
would rather make angry and what purpose he would rather serve. It
remains to hope that being a patriot and a civilized man he will make
the right choice.
From: A. Papazian