PM’S FAILURE IN TRIUMPHANT FINAL ROUND
Levon Margaryan
Story from Lragir.am News:
16:07 26/12/2012
Prime Minister Sargsyan attended the presentation of qahana.am together
with Archbishop Navasard Kchoyan. The prime minister’s public activity
and efforts to be open and engage in non-political platforms are
commendable. Serzh Sargsyan, for example, is indifferent to this
aspect due to business interests. The church is the most convenient
place to get donations for the Diaspora, it is tax-exempt, it enjoys
the confidence of the Diaspora, it is a steady source of legitimacy
and so on. However, Tigran Sargsyan’s attitude to the church is not
based on mercantilism but on spiritualism. It seems to be something
normal. Man has the right to freedom of religion and exercises this
right. The problem occurs somewhere else, when these personal esthetic,
spiritual ambitions are presented as politics. In addition, the prime
minister is the most typical politician of Armenia who builds his
public political activities on non-political approaches.
Others also use this method, including the Republican ex-mayor of
Gyumri Vardan Ghukasyan and the chief of police Vova Gasparyan.
For some time Tigran Sargsyan’s love for rock music was presented as
a manifesto of modern policy in the result of which rock crystallized
in Armenia. Suddenly, the most “populist” discourses were circulated
in Prime Minister Sargsyan’s entourage. Then it became known that
the prime minister has a special love and respect for the church,
special church days and holidays. Earlier, following the practice of
his forefather, the ex-prime minister Hrant Bagratyan, Tigran Sargsyan
tried to author new terms and approaches in agriculture.
There are, certainly, a number of circumstances which will justify
Tigran Sargsyan’s appointment as prime minister. For example,
his legitimacy among international financial organizations. Or his
knowledge of the financial mechanisms of Armenia and ability to control
them. Or the RPA needed modernization and Tigran Sargsyan was therefore
introduced, marking his wing within the RPA. Tigran Sargsyan was able
to ensure some foreign legitimacy for Serzh Sargsyan but the economic
policy failed, and this decline was the most painful because in the
public discourse this government was taken more seriously than the
other governments.
The other aspect of Tigran Sargsyan’s policy – the idea of
knowledge-based economy – was the apogee of his apolitics. He tried to
explain the ongoing processes by the lack of knowledge. However, it is
interesting that Tigran Sargsyan used not so knowledge-based resources
to organize his own political management. Later, it was fashionable
to attribute gaps for which the government was responsible to the
nation’s mentality, lack of knowledge and other reasons. Elitism was
a way of escape from responsibility for the prime minister. Everyone,
including the prime minister, understood that there are no super-wise
and super-knowledgeable nations therefore political elites are elected
for self-organization of communities.
So what was the reason Tigran Sargsyan who enjoyed the positive
attitude of the society in his first year in office is going towards
the triumphant final round as total failure? It is often said that
he is not a politician and is not a political subject but performs
certain functions under internal and external political and economic
consensus. The other option is that Tigran Sargsyan, being a stranger
to the system and getting in touch with the system from a different
place, was unable to get adjusted to it, defeat it and so became its
victim. Tigran Sargsyan’s soft approaches made him vulnerable so he
had to recruit resources which would keep the modern prime minister
in the traditional image – church, Armenian world and so on.
Tigran Sargsyan’s example shows those transformation of the
intellectual resource which is going on in the system. Intellectual
texts transform to empty texts. Moreover, having more knowledge than
others started producing the opposite effect, and unlike others,
hide his own mistakes behind references to knowledge and Daniel Bell.
However, it is impossible to build such politics because even though
individual esthetic and intellectual abilities are important, they
must not be presented as politics especially that everything in
politics has failed.
Before Gagik Tsarukyan’s withdrawal the next prime minister after the
presidential election was discussed. It seemed to be the key point
of distance negotiations between the RPA and the PAP. It is already
difficult to tell whether Serzh Sargsyan will replace Tigran Sargsyan.
However, this system has already devoured Tigran Sargsyan, he is
an insider, he is a dangerous insider because unlike different
non-knowledge-based politicians the knowledge-based prime minister
is able to conceal his mistakes.