Epress.am News from Armenia
Armenia's current problems are not related to the acting Constitution of the republic, second President of the Republic of Armenia Robert Kocharyan said in an interview with 2rd.am, stating that his views on the constitutional reforms have not changed.
“The country can be ruled successfully or unsuccessfully either from the office of the President, or the office of the Prime Minister. It would be naive to assume that the parliamentary model would automatically lead to the creation of a democratic and competitive political atmosphere. It is much more likely that it will only strengthen the deep-rooted patronal government in Armenia,” Kocharyan said.
The interviewer asked the second President about the developments around the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP), stating that there are various rumors circulating in media according to which Kocharyan watched cold-bloodedly the retribution of the party and did nothing to save PAP, while other rumors claim he was simply unable to help PAP then-leader, oligarch Gagik Tsarukyan.
“Neither of those statements is true. I followed closely the political processes of the last years, but have never participated in them. I was in good terms and relations with Gagik Tsarukyan, but I have never had any shady political agreements with him regarding his party or further cooperation with him. This has been stated many times by representatives of both PAP and my office. It is not our fault that not everyone believed in the sincerity of those statements. PAP had its political team which was actively promoting the interests of the party. In the recent years Prosperous Armenia has sought to nominate its own candidates at the parliamentary and presidential elections. It is also obvious that I could not for understandable reasons cooperate with the non-ruling trio formed a few months ago. And besides, the format of the trio wouldn't even exist if PAP were serving my interests.
The statement I made then (Kocharyan called for the ruling authorities not to take any administrative actions against Gagik Tsarukyan, not to go beyond verbal skirmish, and to return the confrontation with the opponents to the political arena – Epress.am) from the standpoint of the former president of the Republics of Armenia, and Nagorno-Karabakh, concerned with the created situation and its negative consequences for the country,” Kocharyan said.
The collapse of Prosperous Armenia Party, as stated by Kocharyan, has made life easy for the ruling authorities, and strengthened the political monopoly in the country, leaving the rest of the issues either unchanged, or further deepening them.