“Pressing” in the program Satik Seyranyan the guest political scientist, the chairman of the “Democratic Alternative” party, Suren Surenyants։

A few days ago, the former Secretary of the Security Council of the Republic of Artsakh, Vitaly Balasanyan, made another statement in a conversation with journalists, in which it was said:

“It’s a shame, it’s a shame. I strongly doubt that there will be elections here, because the international situation, in general, in our region is a catastrophic, extremely difficult situation. They talk about peace, but now there is no document. The Armenian authorities are talking about a piece of paper, but it is not even a memorandum. In the near future, the political map will change, now those who understood their place, role, importance, learned that they are in the world order, will be saved very soon. Armenia should maintain very good relations with Iran, and we should be part of the Union. I don’t know what they will call it now, but it is the same as the Soviet Union,” said Balasanyan.

The authorities, the Communist Party, and their propagandists immediately began to present his words as the viewpoint of the opposition.

What does Vitaly Balasanyan have to do with the opposition in general, whose point of view is he actually expressing?

The main theses of the interview with Suren Surenyants are below.

• I never considered Vitaly Balasanyan a person with serious mental abilities and I did not take his statements seriously. Vitaly Balasanyan unwittingly voiced an idea that is a gift to the government, because the entire narrative of the government is built on it, as if the entire opposition is a Russian citizen. And it is more important that he made this statement from the courtyard of the Mother See. If you say in the same interview that you have close relations with the Catholicos, then you say that Armenia should be a part of the Union State, and this is in the case when the nail of the government’s anti-Church campaign is His Holiness’s alleged pro-Russianness. As the head of a political force, let me say that Vitaly Balasanyan made a reprehensible statement. Any statement that would question Armenia’s sovereignty is foreign to me. People like Vitaly Balasanyan are the counter-pole of pseudo-Westerners. A person who does not stand out for his active public activities, suddenly appears in the pre-election stage and says such things to the media, gives rise to suspicion that, to put it mildly, his game is not honest.

Official propaganda received a gift in the name of Vitaly Balasanyan:

• Unlike Azerbaijan and Central Asian countries, we won our sovereignty with the 1988 movement.

• The question of joining the Russia-Belarus Union was never discussed at the official level, neither in Moscow nor in Yerevan. 

• Of course, Nikol Pashinyan destroyed our sovereignty, but that does not mean that the solution is to become someone’s outpost. The 1988 movement was an independent, anti-imperialist movement. Vitaly Balasanyan should first explain his statement and then say that it is his personal opinion and has nothing to do with any political force. I have not seen Vitaly Balasanyan in any serious opposition format after 2023 and, frankly, I don’t want to see him.

• Donald Trump has become a hostage of “Epstein’s coalition”. There is no hint of strategy in Trump’s actions. Israel has a strategy, which through its lobbying structures was able to place Trump in its pocket. Israel’s strategy is clear. they are on the path of dismembering Iran. They imagine 6-7 states instead of Iran. It is already obvious that some hopes of Tel-Aviv and Washington have not come true. Iran is neither Venezuela nor Syria. The loss of a spiritual leader could not destroy Iran:

• Mojtaba Khamenei, the new spiritual leader, became the consensus of various factions of the Iranian elite and a large part of society. Iran’s message is that they will continue to fight with the same toughness. At the moment, at least, Iran’s political system shows no visible cracks.

• It is not that Aliyev has no desire to join the anti-Iranian operations, but Aliyev is not adventurous. He would take such a drastic step if the Iranian system were tottering. If today he is looking for diplomatic ways to solve the issue with Iran, then he has information that the Iranian system is still stable:

• Turkey does not need Iranian chaos or fragmentation. He will prevent Azerbaijan from such an adventure.

• At the moment, Pezeshkian or Aragchi is playing more of a decoration role because at the moment all the power in Iran is concentrated in the hands of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), the Secretary of the Supreme National Security Council of Iran, Ali Larijani and others.:

• I have doubts about the International Republican Institute, IRI polls, because I was aware of different results before they were published. But even with their results, the public’s positive attitude towards TRIPP is 44% against 48% negative. Nikol Pashinyan needs a new success story, because even after all this preaching, there is no positive consensus among the public regarding TRIPP. 

Besides, in any case, whether Iran wins or loses this war, TRIPP loses its relevance. Moreover, if Aliyev sees that the roads are not opening, Aliyev will not be able to resist the temptation to take it. That’s why the official propaganda of Armenia is lobbying uncontrollably about giving Azerbaijan a humanitarian corridor. This is an Azeri demand, which the CP government has a problem of packing. They want a road, let them go to Nakhijevan through the borders of Armenia’s sovereignty, with a border guard, customs point, why are you doing special propaganda? Or, what humanitarian corridor do you provide? Does Azerbaijan behave very humanitarianly when ours? holds captives. The government is creating all the grounds not for a humanitarian corridor, but for giving Azerbaijan a privileged path, because it has understood that TRIPP will not be implemented.:

• God forbid, Iran will be divided. In that case, our statehood will face serious danger, Armenia will become a Turkish enclave. The worst scenario for Armenia in this war is the fragmentation of Iran.

• When there was a pause in the middle of serious acts in the circus, a novice clown was sent to keep the people busy. For the big players, Nikol Pashinyan is the clown who was sent to occupy the people so that people don’t realize what is happening around them, don’t see the real dangers, don’t see what disasters the partition of Iran is fraught with for us, that if they lose the Armenian-Iranian border, you won’t need anyone, that there are 10-20 million Azerbaijanis in the north of Iran, that you are surrounded by enemies from several sides.: 

• Yes, it is necessary to maintain neutrality in this war. no one says that you should take someone’s side, but neutrality does not mean degradation, it does not mean a happy bus presentation in a fire, a discotheque, the only niche in which Nikol Pashinyan felt valued is playing crazy. Nikol Pashinyan certainly has a loss of adequacy, but let’s not overestimate it, because he is adequate to keep his power. This man destroyed half of the Motherland and was not held accountable. Now he is thinking: if he did such a thing and was not punished, why should he be punished for rigging the election? It’s our fault for letting a man who lost a war get re-elected.

• Only a very strong public consolidation will bring Nikol Pashinyan to rejection. A very large participation in the elections should be ensured. The public must become a subject. People, don’t do such a thing on June 7 that the Azerbaijani special forces will have the right to make arrests in Armenia later.:

• There won’t be a miracle on June 7 if you don’t lay the groundwork for it by June 7 and don’t have a plan by June 8, because you’re dealing with a kamikaze government that will blow up the country by blowing itself up. It is still in the mood of “Either I will be the prime minister or Armenia will not have a prime minister” in 2018. We must have a scenario for post-election developments. What are we going to do if the monkey’s hand turns out to be a grenade on the night of June 7, when he realizes that he has lost the election? 

We are dealing with absolute collaborator authorities, which is ready to destroy the state, only to reproduce itself. The government has external supporters in these elections: the West, Turkey, Azerbaijan. Unfortunately, the opposition has no external supporters. The only supporter of the opposition is the people. Any political force that waits for help from outside will be destroyed. On September 21, the Armenian people were waiting for Dabro? People should know one thing, by voting for Nikol Pashinyan, they will vote for the “Western Azerbaijan” faction in the National Assembly. I don’t want to become anyone’s satellite, even more so I don’t want to become a dog tied to the door of Turkey and Azerbaijan. If the people left conscious choice, Nikol Pashinyan cannot even receive asylum from his Kaya Kalas and others.

Nikol Pashinyan’s regional visits suggest that even in the regions he receives a slap. The conscious choice of the people can turn the government’s happy bus into a hellish bus:

Details in the video.

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