THE WIND BLOWS IN ANOTHER DIRECTION
Recently Heritage Party was recalled in connection with the
inauguration of the Council of Elders, Heritage-government relations
at the level of the Council of Elders, as well as the unnoticed return
of Raffi Hovannisian and his political statements.
Appearance of the Heritage in the Council of Elders gave it additional
resources, and it is actually the leading opposition force amid the
PAP’s passiveness and hesitant policy. Armen Martirosyan rightly said
that Heritage was able to participate in several elections without
having resources. Yes, it could and it received different amounts of
votes every time but the Heritage failed to do the main thing – did
not capitalize its resources. Two months ago one would not believe
that Heritage would find itself in its current status.
After the tragedy of March 1 Ter-Petrosyan’s team, which officially
received fewer votes than Raffi Hovannisian led the opposition
generating the political capital accrued during the ten days of
the movement for 4 years. With more votes and longer post-electoral
processes Raffi and Heritage now appear at political rostrums from
time to time.
In the previous convocation the Heritage Party gained important
experience which formed the core of its activities: intensive action
on every emerging issue with a small tea;, support to different groups
of citizens and most importantly politicization of complaints and
bringing them to the oppositional discourse. But now the situation
has changed. First, the quality of opposition and generally political
discourse has dropped drastically. Later Heritage thwarted possible
scenarios of greater political prospects. For the time being, interest
in Heritage will be limited to counterbalance to the possible ANC-PAP
tandem.
It is painful because Heritage received the votes of the best part
of the electorate, people who are free from party hierarchies, are
relatively independent and represent all the spheres of life.
There is no need for a thorough analysis to find out the real reason
for the weakening of Heritage’s factor. They are in the speeches
of Raffi Hovannisian. “I don’t have a team, people is my team,”
was his slogan which crushed the main resource of the Heritage –
teamwork experience in the previous convocation.
What is the Heritage Party going to do in the upcoming year? Honest
political and civil intentions is very little, especially in the
political culture of Armenia. If the PAP becomes aggressive, the
government may revise its relations with the Heritage. Otherwise the
Heritage may become a marginal.
The electorate on which the Heritage has traditionally relied is
already captured by other forces, within non-Armenian demand.
Heritage must return to its civil policy, politicizing the civil
sector and releasing it from marginal forces, translating civil
protest to political text or otherwise obey destiny’s whim. In the
next few years there will be lots of such opportunities. However,
it is first necessary to review the anti-political “we have no team,
people are our team” approach and eventually formulate the collective
interests of one’s own team. One needs a team, politics requires a
team, people cannot be a team because the Armenian society is not
people in the professional sense of the word. Besides, the community
is not unitary, and a political force is responsible for one section,
and besides people, community and nation are abstract notions.
Referring to them means denying one’s own political responsibility.
For the time being, the problems of Heritage are at this level,
and without resolving these issues all the havens of last hope will
be lost, and some prospects for staying in the political field will
be lost. Destiny is like wind, it is changeable, and one should not
rely on destiny.
Levon Margaryan 19:09 17/06/2013 Story from Lragir.am News:
http://www.lragir.am/index/eng/0/comments/view/30189