Hovanes Igityan: Today’s Armenia reminds me of the last years USSR
Interview of the head of the parliamentary commission on foreign
affairs in 1995-99, Hovanes Igityan, with ArmInfo news agency
by David Stepanyan
ARMINFO
Saturday, May 18, 17:42
Will you please describe the last events in the domestic political
situation in the republic? Does the movement headed by Raffi
Hovannisian have prospects?
Raffi Hovannisian’s movement is an attempt to keep protesting moods
high in Armenia. That’s why he keeps traveling the country and
assuring the people that things will improve. I think things are
already improving. To speak against the regime is no longer a taboo in
Armenia. You can openly say what they think and nobody will touch you.
Raffi Hovannisian is politically correct and non-aggressive in
criticizing the regime, and this is his personal merit. I believe that
the key reason for Hovannisian’s success during the past presidential
election was that he is not like the other opposition leaders. “He is
a man from the West – the world our people are so eager to go to. His
success was a surprise for both the regime and the opposition – and I
doubt that the latter would be able to get as many votes as he did had
he not run for presidency.
Does it mean that refusal of these forces to run for president did
not play a crucial role?
Prosperous Armenia and ARFD had each its own reasons for not running
for presidency, but their refusal to run was not decisive for the
outcome of the race. The key reason why Raffi Hovannisian got so many
votes is that people no longer trust the regime. Had Raffi Hovannisian
been different, the regime would have tamed him by offering him a
post, a business or some other benefit. But he has proved that he
needs none of it. So, now he has to take a step a classical opposition
leader would take – he has to make a revolution. I think that the
regime has two ways to deal with Hovannisian: either to ignore him or
to start a dialogue with him. Serzh Sargsyan cannot ignore the
problems his country is facing. He must find a way-out. He must
understand why his people has refused to vote for him. He cannot
ignore the man who enjoys so high popularity.
Today’s Armenia is like the Soviet Union living its last days. The
Communists had to do something to keep their country from falling
apart. Yes, today our people are not yet attacking the presidential
palace, but almost half of them are no longer willing to live in
Armenia and are doing all they can do leave the country. Serzh
Sargsyan can hardly be efficient in his foreign policy with so weak
positions at home.
As I understand, the power prefers to place stake more on
disappointment of the society with Raffi, like in case of Levon
Ter-Petrosyan…
I don’t think that the disappointment will be as strong as in the
previous cases, as Raffi did not promise anything. He is not using
slogans like Serzh Go Away! and is not pushing the people to overthrow
the regime. He has just urged them to show who is the real master in
Armenia. And even if Hovannisian goes away, the people will not start
loving the regime just because the West loves it.
You pointed at Raffi’s `western’ nature. But if so, why did the West
recognize Serzh Sargsyan’s victory?
They in the West have stopped organizing color revolutions as they
have seen that any president will sooner or later do what they want.
It is much easier to control an illegitimate unpopular president than
a strong electee. Such was the case in Ukraine and Georgia. The same
is true for Armenia: our president has caused no single problem to the
West in the past five years, has he? They in the West are satisfied
with Sargsyan and see no need for replacing him with Raffi
Hovannisian. In his turn, Sargsyan hopes that the people will soon
lose faith in Hovannisian as they did in the times of Levon
Ter-Petrosyan.
Let’s suppose that the West is merciful to Armenia’s joining the Customs Union…
Unfortunately, the prospect of Armenia’s joining the Customs Union is
revised only from the political, pro-power or opposition point of
view, and nobody presents the economic context. There are zones of the
influence interests in the geo-politics, which the powers of the world
ignore, as they think that these zones do not belong to them. It has
turned out that the West has got a special attitude to Armenia and CIS
countries, although the West recognizes the leading role of Russia
with few exceptions. The EU only says that any integration unions must
not contradict the obligations of Armenia on the Contract on
Armenia-EU Free Trade and WTO. The given issue should be revised,
first of all, from the economic point of view: what benefits Armenia
will have in case of joining the Customs Union. Hundreds of parameters
must be revised and analyzed thoroughly. And only after that we can
revise the prospects of Armenia’s membership in the Customs Union.
Levon Ter-Petrosyan said at the congress of ANC that the party has
come make a bourgeois-democratic revolution in Armenia. What does it
mean in today’s Armenian reality?
The statement by the leader of the ANC at the congress of the party
was inconclusive for me and other people in the congress hall, as
Levon Ter-Petrosyan did not open any brackets. For this reason, I
think this statement was not serious.
Ter-Petrosyan simply made an attempt to justify some his steps, which
I think were wrong from the very beginning. In particular, to remove
wealthy people from the power and to place stake on them in the
policy. Any steps of any party should be assessed by the society,
raise its rating, add trust and support, and increase the number of
its supporters. Speaking about the necessity of making a
bourgeois-democratic revolution today, Ter-Petrosyan just meant the
necessity of withdrawal of two-three wealthy persons from the power
pyramid. In this case ANC mixes up the cause and consequence. From
the economic point of view, the availability of oligarchs in the power
is wrong. But if, let us say, Samvel Aleksanyan is removed from the
power, and the power system is not changed, somebody else will
immediately occupy his seat, but he will be in no way different from
the given oligarch.
You said that Armenia is more and more like the USSR during the last
years of its existence. How can we overcome such a backwater?
Should those in power in Armenia decide to develop their economy,
they will be able to do it in a month by just creating free market
conditions. The best example is Kazakhstan, where elections are not
democratic either but where market relations are free and economy is
liberal. They have no oligarchs or monopolists. In fact, the Kazakh
President is doing what his counterparts did in Chile or China. In the
last years many dictatorships have shown an inclination to reform
their economies, which is not, alas, the case in Armenia.
From: Baghdasarian