Author: Kalashian Nyrie

BY GAREN YEGPARIAN

For many months, there has been chatter in the Republic of Armenia (RoA) regarding amending its constitution. And, come to think of it, that chatter extended all the way back to when it was last reworked four-five years ago. There have been concerns all along about having a prime minister with too much power, a product of the shenanigans of the previous regime.

Things began to crystallize after Prime Minister Pashinyan’s announcement on December 30. A committee of experts was to be established. But soon, another policy target of the current regime converged – the struggle to take control of the Constitutional Court. By early February, seven of the nine member court had clearly been named as the targets of an April 5th referendum featuring only one amendment to the country’s constitution. It would force the seven out of office.

Immediately the demonization of the court, already underway, started to get louder. It was accused of putting “limits on the people’s power” and being a “terrible and direct threat to democracy”… plus, anyone opposing this process was accused of being “anti-state”! This crusade against the court has been adeptly packaged as part of the ongoing (oft-abused term) “revolution” that began in Spring, 2018 and anyone opposed to the changes became, by extension, anti-revolutionary. All of this demagoguery somehow evokes George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” for me.

This run at the Constitutional Court is also reminiscent of U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt’s (FDR) attempt to increase the size of the U.S. Supreme Court from 9 to 16 judges and pack it with supportive appointees. He was well intentioned in that the court was obstructing efforts to lift the country out of the Great Depression. But, that would have set a bad precedent, politicizing the judicial system. He was thwarted and that helped restore the country to a course of increasingly solid rule of law.

Pashinyan and his My Step bloc had been deriding the seven, and especially the court’s current president, as corrupt. In fact, a pro-government news outlet recently reported that an investigation of that judge and his godson had been completed and made it seem like charges against them were in the making. Pursuing this kind of investigative and legal path to removing one or more corrupt judges from the Constitutional Court would have been completely reasonable, appropriate, and an enhancement of the rule of law in the RoA.

Instead, Pashinyan has opted for a route that actually undermines the rule of law. At the most obvious level, the process is unconstitutional based simply on the fact that the constitution calls for a review by the Constitutional Court of constitutional amendments prior to their being placed before the voters in a referendum. Pashinyan and the parliament, with its My Step majority, have decided to bypass this requirement. This requirement, found in Article 169 Section 2 of the RoA Constitution struck me as strange, but it is the law of the land. By circumventing it in order to consolidate power, Pashinyan and My Step are behaving much like their corrupt predecessors and others in history, worldwide, who have come to power riding a wave of popular support based on promises of a better life who are then faced with the very real and large challenge of delivering on their promises.

In this light, you can see the irony of their assertions about the seven targeted judges being holdovers from the previous regime of the Republican Party who still do the latter’s bidding! Even if this is true, and I would not be at all surprised if it is, the way to correct the problem is NOT the one chosen by Pashinyan. After all, he is just as much a holdover of a previous regime as any of the judges. Remember, he is Levon Ter Petrosian’s protégé and has some dark chapters in his civic/political/public life, too. But, he seems to have come around to a better path. Why take a step backward into the corrupt, fast-and-loose-with-the-law approach of his predecessors.

Is it not possible that even the seven judges appointed by previous regimes will now behave properly (if they weren’t before) since they are free of the pressure that those formerly in power could apply?

Is there not supposed to be a system of checks and balances among the executive, legislative, and judicial branches of government? Doesn’t this look like a power grab by the executive and legislative branches at the expense of the judicial?

Isn’t the judicial branch supposed to be the defender of the rule of law, the staid and plodding guardian of a country’s constitution and laws, even at times when citizens may be worked up over various, legitimate, issues and problems leading them to want to circumvent law and procedure to more rapidly achieve their desired goals, thus undermining the very rule of law?

Do not My Step and Pashinyan realize that using tactics which vilify one sector of society ultimately serves to divide it and runs counter to their message of national unity?

Should Pashinyan and My Step, as proponents of democracy, not WANT an opposing pole of power in government to serve as a check on them should they fall into the trap of abusing power? That can happen and has happened to even the most well intentioned of public servants.

Besides, who’s to say the judges who will replace the seven will be any better? An opposition news source reported last week that one of the two Constitutional Court judges appointed since Pashinyan/My Step came to power has not completed his duties because of travel in pursuit of personal business. As a result, the court has not delivered verdicts in a number of cases.

It is a time of peril for the RoA. If this route is taken and followed to its conclusion, the country could easily fall into the same downward spiral that followed the collapse of the Soviet Union and the country’s re-independence when the corrupt system was established under its first president’s watch. There is no doubt in my mind that given the popularity still enjoyed Pashinyan and My Step, they will succeed on April 5, setting them on a path of unchecked rule.

Let’s raise our voices in defense of the very process of positive change initiated two years ago by Pashinyan and our compatriots who took to the streets to reclaim their rights and dignity as citizens. Let’s remind the current regime of its responsibility and help it step back from the brink. Let’s make Pashinyan the Armenian FDR!

BY GAREN YEGPARIAN

Last week, the discussion focused on California and Los Angeles county. If you missed it and want to read about the major changes in the voting system, please see the piece in either Asbarez, The Armenian Weekly, or California Courier. This time, it’s a much wider field that will be the focus of our attention: March 3, Super Tuesday and its fourteen jurisdictions. Given that the Republican side of the partisan divide has a sitting president, it’s a foregone conclusion who that party’s nominee will be. Hence, the Democratic side will be covered exclusively in this piece.

Before moving on to the Presidential Primaries, one down-ticket election is of special interest to Armenians, Simon Maghakyan’s candidacy for Colorado’s House of Representatives, District 7. Simon has been active in our community’s life for some time now, through the ANCA and otherwise. You probably heard about him most recently in the context of his efforts to inform the international community about Azerbaijan’s heinous and barbaric destruction of Armenian cultural sites in Nakhichevan. While few Armenians will actually be able to vote for him in this district just north of Denver, it is possible to support Simon financially by going to his fundraising page or by mailing a check to “Simon for Colorado, PO Box 39129, Denver, CO 80239”. By law, the check must be accompanied by your full name, occupation (or retired, unemployed), employer’s name, phone number, email address, and residence address (if different from that on check).

Alabama, American Samoa, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Democrats Abroad, Maine, Massachusetts, Minnesota, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Vermont, Virginia- that’s who’s voting on Super Tuesday. While two of those are not states, they still have citizens who have the right to participate in the selection process of a party’s eventual nominee, despite not being represented in and by the archaic, and un-democratic, electoral college that ultimately determines who will become president of the United States of America.

These jurisdictions comprise over 35% of the country’s population, so it should come as no surprise if after that day, it’s possible the final outcome of the nominating process will be a foregone conclusion. The winner of 17 out of 18 Super Tuesdays (combined Democratic and Republican primaries) between 1984 and 2016 won his or her party’s nomination.

In order of preference, from an Armenian perspective, I think the candidates worthy of our vote are Tulsi Gabbard, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren. I recognize that Gabbard is a long shot, especially given how poorly she did in the Iowa Caucuses, but given how strongly she has supported out issues, it is worth given her a perceptible bump in votes wherever large numbers of Armenians live. This will convey the message we support those who support the issues we care about. Two of the states voting that day have significant Armenian populations and can help make this point. So if you live in California or Massachusetts, and if you are registered to vote as a Democrat, please be sure to vote. In fact, you still have time to reregister as a Democrat in both states so you can vote in that party’s primary (you can change back to whatever other party affiliation you had after the election). In Massachusetts, the deadline is 20 days before an election to do this, meaning you have until February 13. In California, it is only 15 days, giving you until February 18. To a lesser extent, this same urgency applies to Virginia as well, where we have a small but somewhat concentrated presence in the vicinity of Washington, DC. The deadline to register in Virginia is 22 days before an election, giving you until February 11. Hurry.

The Iowa Caucuses were held on February 4, the first place that people actually engage in the process of selecting delegates to the national party conventions where candidates are officially and finally chosen to run for president on behalf of their party. Sanders and Pete Buttigieg tied for first place as far as delegates earned (11 each), with Sanders leading by less than 0.2% of actual votes as of this writing. Warren got 5 delegates and the remaining candidates none. It’s still early in the process, with roughly 2551 delegates total to attend the convention. The next contest is the New Hampshire Primary election on February 11.

You may wonder how I can support “socialists” for office (Bernie Sanders is avowedly one, and Gabbard and Warren are too, effectively, if not explicitly). For the moment, I’ll not get into a substantive discussion of that. But if that is your concern as a “centrist” Democrat (I do not pretend that the following argument will be convincing or even of interest to those of the political right), then I’ll ask you to consider this: The U.S., in its post-World War II heyday had arrived at something of a balance of power, and attendant societal benefits, between its moneyed elites and the vast majority of its people. Over the past half century or so, extensive, effective, and successful efforts by the right and extreme right in the United States have shifted political discourse, policy, and laws quite far to the right. Just take a look at what the roles of government, people, laws, and moneyed interests were then vs. now, and you will be struck by that shift. If that balance is to be restored, it will take a period of governance by those whose policies are more left-leaning in the U.S. Senate and House, along with the state legislatures coupled with like-minded people serving as governors and president. That is the only way to get back to the “center” that you prefer.

The heated Republican/Democratic battle for control of the House and Senate should be seen in this context. The after-effect of the acquittal of President Trump in his impeachment trial, the ongoing shrinkage of the middle class, the impoverishment of ever larger portions of society (as painfully evinced in the homelessness crisis), and the decline in the international stature of the U.S.

Finally, correcting omissions from last week’s article: There is Proposition 13 on Californians’ ballot. It is a bond measure for school, community college, and university facilities. I suggest voting YES on this one. Also, two other Armenians who have been active in our community and are incumbents up for reelection: Adrin Nazarian for 45th Assembly District and Paul Krrkorian for LA City Council District 2. Like Elen Astryan in the 43rd Assembly District, whom I discussed last week, John Harabedian is running for Democratic Central Committee, too, but in the 41st AD – vote for him if you live in that jurisdiction. Finally, two Los Angeles County measures, Fire District 911 Firefighter/Paramedic Emergency Response and Sheriff Civilian Oversight Commission Ordinance deserve yes votes.

After all this, the most important thing to remember is still that you should VOTE, VOTE, VOTE, regardless of for whom you ultimately vote. Believe it or not, people study who votes, and seeing more ian/yans (or other Armenian connected name endings) leads to more credibility and influence for our communities and interests. Please check out the ANCA’s list of endorsements for specific references.