‘The People are Not that Naïve Not to Understand’: Kocharian

In an exclusive interview to local news agency Mediamax, second president of the Republic of Armenia talked frankly about the post-election violence of Mar. 1–2, 2008: his role, his decision to call a state of emergency and the ensuing investigation.

Today we witness the following situation: you do not demonstrate any political activity; however, your name appears in different forecasts and analytical articles daily. Moreover, the general context of Armenian media reports and speeches of various political figures (namely, from the Armenian National Congress) allows for the assumption that the characteristics of political processes in the country to a particular degree are conditioned by this same “Kocharian factor.” How would you explain this?

Probably this is because the period of my presidency stood out by positive changes in the quality of people’s lives. Most apparently, some politicians are deprived of sleep because of that fact. So, the futile efforts to lessen the achievements of those years or assign them to abstract global processes not depending on us are conditioned by that. It is obvious that over the past few years the level of people’s life significantly deteriorated, and irrespective of objective or subjective factors of that deterioration, people are inclined to compare. And the more ordinary people compare, the harder politically committed opponents try to discredit me. Unfortunately this is the logic of today’s internal processes, which doesn’t depend much on the level of my activity. I’m sure that the people are not that naïve not to understand all this.

What is your assessment of the dialogue being established between the authorities and the opposition? How do you assess the current political process?

This depends on the topic of the dialogue. If the dialogue concerns establishing civilized rules of political struggle and leads to renouncing its radicalization [i.e. of the political struggle], of course, my assessment is positive. Stability is a necessary condition for economy growth, and this is what Armenia needs most of all today.

This will also benefit the conducting of fair elections. If the elections are held under the slogan “to be or not to be,” the motives for fraud unspeakably increase.

But if the dialogue concerns parameters for the imitation of a political struggle (for suitable awards), then probably this is a deal being carried out behind voters’ backs. This, by the way, is a direct path to standstill and growth of corruption, since opposition immediately stops fulfilling its main function, namely prompting authorities to work better and be more restrained in terms of appetite. People will be the ones to pay for that collision out of their already scanty pockets.

What exactly happens between the authorities and the opposition now, I don’t know. I’m not participating in this process, thank god. I only described the possible options and their likely consequences. Both versions are possible in our reality. As for which is being realized in practice, time will tell.