I Don’t Need Power Donated by Foreign Forces: Ter-Petrossian

There has never been revolution in Armenia, said first president of the Republic of Armenia and leader of the opposition bloc the Armenian National Congress (HAK) Levon Ter-Petrossian in a recent interview with The Moscow News.

“There was no foreign influence in Armenia and there isn’t now. The Armenian National Congress has no support from any country in the outside world. Maybe that’s our problem, but we are not searching for an owner — there’s never been such a thing and never will be. I do not need any power donated by foreign forces,” he said.

According to Ter-Petrossian, he came up with a new platform in 2007.

“I was silent for 10 years. I believe that former presidents should not interfere in politics. All over the world this is so. Of course, something might not please you. But when you see your country, your state is completely changing before your eyes, you can no longer sit idly by. In these past 10 years, no one has been able to formulate a model for this state. I did this in 2007, before officially entering the election campaign. I saw that there was nothing left of all from what we had before, in 1998, and from our thoughts of where we would be in 30 years. Instead of democracy and a free market, we have created a pure kleptocracy. Instead of creating political power we have created a criminal government.

“A pyramid has been created in Armenia — the government is corrupt from the top down. There is no high-ranking official who doesn’t have a business. No politics, just pure criminal relations. Ruthless plundering of the state, the nation, the population and national wealth. There exist two budgets: one official and the other, unofficial, which they put in their pockets, and by the way, the second is two times more than the first. People brought up in extreme poverty, utter despair. Mass emigration is up. There is no end.

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“In our time too there was corruption, who denies this? There were dishonest officials. We were struggling as long as we could, along with the war, along with the solution of other problems. But there wasn’t the systemic corruption that exists now. Economists are sometimes shocked when I say there was no shadow economy in Armenia. It is a paradox. The shadow economy is an economy that is outside of the state’s control. And this economy is totally controlled by the state. This is not a shadow economy; it’s state racketeering,” said Ter-Petrossian.

According to the first president of the Republic of Armenia, “Orange Revolutions” are those revolutions which are instigated from outside. He said that when talking about Ukraine’s “Orange Revolution” and Georgia’s “Rose Revolution,” they meant that the US was behind those revolutions.

“This is not the case. No America can organize a revolution in the country. They can influence at most 5% of the situation. And Russia too cannot. When they say the Americans brought power to Yushchenko and Saakashvili, I don’t believe it. It happened by itself; it was the people. I don’t completely deny outside influences, but it can only be within the 5% limit,” he said.