IF TSARUKYAN KNEW
Levon Margaryan
Story from Lragir.am News:
Published: 12:11:39 – 08/10/2012
Sargsyan-Kocharyan: Antagonism or Difference
The most frequently discussed question following the case of
Vartan Oskanian is whether there is an antagonism between Robert
Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan. Surprisingly, Oskanian’s case did not
trigger a civic protest despite his supporters’ expectations or a
strong anti-governmental behavior of the PAP but totally different
developments including the question which I mentioned above. All the
more so, Oskanian’s supporters Robert Kocharyan and Gagik Tsarukyan
are still limited to soft assessments. None of them has attributed
Oskanian’s case to 26 Baghramyan Street.
The most important political line for the PAP, particularly its leader
Tsarukyan is to be opposition but to the extent that is needed. In
addition, Tsarukyan’s recent evasive behavior provides the missing
link in this logical chain and leads to the question whether there
is antagonism between Kocharyan and Sargsyan. If Tsarukyan knew
the answer to this question, he would have launched an offensive on
the government in the current perfect situation. Although Tsarukyan
personally has always played closer to Kocharyan and was considered
as one of his people, he does not know the answer to this question.
Immediately after March 1, at least during the next year, a person
with a good sense would never doubt that the two politicians, the
second and the third presidents, copied the rules of the tandem of
their Russian counterparts. However, one year later it was clear that
Kocharyan would not be in government, neither as a prime minister,
nor as another government official. Moreover, the Kocharyan-Sargsyan
antagonism escalated in the press.
This dichotomy favors Sargsyan, especially in the context of March 1,
because it is more favorable to blacken Kocharyan as he knows how to
act as black. It was followed by concerns of Kocharyan’s entourage
for several years that the second president is offended because
the third president made him retire so early. The RPA-PAP scramble
and Oskanian’s membership to PAP came as arguments to Kocharyan’s
presence in the PAP. In addition, every time the PAP tried to end the
perception that they are related to Kocharyan, it did very cautiously
because it understood that would cause complications both in case of
a small and a big dosage.
Now the allegations against Kocharyan by Ruben Hairapetyan, Galust
Sahakyan and others question Sargsyan-Kocharyan antagonism. The
traditional opposition of the society and the political landscape does
not answer this question or agrees with the existence of the antagonism
or issues apolitical, folkloric evaluations of the state of affairs.
If we try to discuss the issue in a specific political context, we
will have the following picture. There is an obvious difference of
interests of Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan. The reasons are
several. They have different styles of foreign and domestic policies.
They have different skills in making adjustments in accordance
with the foreign line, the possibilities of cooperation with other
political forces are different. For example, Serzh Sargsyan, being
the leader of the parliamentary majority, has a chance to implement
his own decisions without adding centralism to the government more or
less in compliance with international standards and under the simple
political rules. Despite his influence on the RPA and other political
parties, Kocharyan needed to be closed, precise and tough because he
needed to implement personally his own policy.
In fact, Serzh Sargsyan controls the army with its military
establishment, both formal and the yerkrapah, which enables him to
control another institution of his country. In order to ensure the
army’s legitimacy Kocharyan had to ask for Serzh Sargsyan’s help or
again increase the distance because he had problems at least with
the Yerkrapah Union.
However, difference is one thing, opposition is another thing. This is
the main issue. Now at least we can define that there are differences
between Kocharyan and Sargsyan at almost all the levels while there
is no opposition or it is not visible. And the game is based on the
second. In this situation, this is the main concern of the society
and the political field. The camps divided, the fight for the honor
of leaders has set out. But do the leaders want to fight?
It is a fact that there is a difference between them, and their
political cooperation is passive. However, two more options
should be taken into account. The group referred to as the clan of
Karabakh, though to be more precise, it should be referred to as the
representatives of the human resource policy of Karabakh, has different
local rules of logic of political culture, and despite controversies
inside the teams or groups, at the last moment when the problem is
election, it may keep to the internal confidence code (the field
fears this). On the other hand, ahead of the elections, especially
with the pending issue of March 1, the game of good policeman-bad
policeman is a successful step to make the field possibly controllable.