SARKISIAN PROMISES SWEEPING CABINET SHAKE-UP
Radio Liberty
March 12 2008
Czech Rep.
Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian said on Wednesday that he will make
sweeping and unexpected personnel changes in his government after
taking over as Armenia’s new president early next month.
Sarkisian insisted that he has not yet decided who should succeed him
as prime minister and is still considering "a number of candidacies"
for the post. He did not specify if outgoing President Robert Kocharian
is one of them.
Kocharian has long been linked with the job, having famously stated
that he has no intention to become "Armenia’s youngest pensioner"
after completing his second and final term in office. Some local
observers believe that chances of Kocharian becoming prime minister
have increased in the wake of the February 19 presidential election.
They point to his crucial role in the enforcement of the official
vote results that gave victory to Sarkisian.
"There will be changes [in the make-up of the government] which many
people do not expect," Sarkisian said at a meeting with university
students in Yerevan. "I’m not saying that I will fire everyone. But
it will be the first serious step by the newly elected president
of Armenia."
The new Armenian cabinet will likely comprise representatives of
Sarkisian’s Republican Party (HHK), the pro-Kocharian Prosperous
Armenia Party (BHK) and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation
(Dashnaktsutyun). The president-elect has also promised to give
ministerial posts to the Orinats Yerkir Party of Artur Baghdasarian,
a former parliament speaker and major presidential candidate. It was
announced on February 29 that as part of his power-sharing deal with
Sarkisian, Baghdasarian will be appointed as secretary of Armenia’s
largely ceremonial National Security Council.
One of the students reminded Sarkisian that Kocharian publicly accused
Baghdasarian of high treason in May last year after the ex-speaker
called for Western pressure on the Armenian government in a secretly
recorded conversation with a British diplomat in Yerevan.
"Do you think that Kocharian’s attitude towards Artur Baghdasarian
can not differ from Serzh Sarkisian’s?" replied Sarkisian. "If you
think so, you are wrong."
The outgoing premier also defended the use of lethal force against
thousands of supporters of his main election challenger, Levon
Ter-Petrosian, who demonstrated in Yerevan on March 1. He said they
were wrong to clash with security forces even if the latter made
"mistakes" during the dispersal earlier in the day of Ter-Petrosian’s
tent camp outside the city’s Opera House.
"Even if the police made a mistake outside the Opera, nobody had the
right to behave like that," he said. "If the organizers were civilized
people and cared about Armenia a little, they could calm down those
people and protest in a legal way."
Sarkisian further stated that the unrest not only tarnished Armenia’s
image abroad but could complicate a near-term settlement of the
Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. "Of course, the events of March 1 did not
help the matter," he said. "The president of Armenia will not have a
strong hand because regardless of who was guilty and what happened,
the international standing of our country has been dealt a blow."
The Kocharian-Sarkisian duo and Azerbaijan’s President Robert Kocharian
are understood to have agreed on the main points of a framework peace
accord put forward by the U.S., Russian and French mediators last
November. Analysts regards this as a major factor behind the lack
of strong Western pressure on Yerevan in the wake of the disputed
election and the bloody crackdown on the Armenian opposition.
Sarkisian said he plans to meet Aliev "one or two months" after his
inauguration slated for April 9.