Looking to Autumn: Opposition has favorable conditions for staging uprising
Three months after leaving office, Armenia’s second president continues to remain a major target for his predecessor’s criticism.
In his three speeches since May (when he first delivered a public speech following the March 1 events), first president Levon Ter-Petrosyan did not hesitate to use derogatory language in reference to Robert Kocharyan ranging from reiteration of Kocharyan’s involvement in the October 27, 1999 parliamentary killings to mockery at his linguistic mistakes. Simultaneously he tried to covertly win over incumbent President Serzh Sargsyan saying in his June 20 speech: “Serzh, we used to be friends, and I can address you informally, and you have the same right.” He promised to start a dialogue once political prisoners have been released and condemned him for keeping Kocharyan’s protégées within government structures.
And in his speech at a July 4 rally, Ter-Petrosyan also set demands for Sargsyan to oust Kocharyan’s close associates– Prosecutor General Aghvan Hovsepyan, Minister of Territorial Administration Armen Gevorgyan, chief of presidential staff Hovik Abrahamyan and chief of the National Security Service Gorik Hakobyan. Otherwise, he warned, he will demand Sargsyan’s resignation beginning August 1.
There are speculations that the opposition is preparing another move to seize power in October-November and had organized its sitting strike in Northern Avenue beginning July 4 in order to keep passions alive.
Expected tensions and overtures made to Serzh Sargsyan are just links in the chain of methods to overtake power. Provoking Sargsyan to make drastic personnel changes in government, particularly against the Kocharyan team (and especially given that Sargsyan covertly wants those changes) Ter-Petrosyan wants to weaken the system developed throughout the last ten years that is expected to show resistance in autumn, because the new people within power will not have time to form a collective will to retain this power by then.
Instead of enjoying his rest after decade-long presidency, Robert Kocharyan gave two interviews to reply to Ter-Petrosyan. In his second interview on July 9, he says that Ter-Petrosyan sees him as his main political rival in the future struggle. And according to the claims of the pro-Ter-Petrosyan press, it is Kocharyan who continues to govern the country. Kocharyan replies that if it was so, Ter-Petrosyan would be under arrest now. Nevertheless, although Kocharyan resigned, his shadow remains in power, which may pose an obstacle to Ter-Petrosyan’s intention to seize power and to Sargsyan in forming his team (that was how Ter-Petrosyan’s shadow woke up in power in the course of the election struggle and turned into a threat of revolt during the February protests when a decisive step from Ter-Petrosyan’s associate, deputy defense minister Manvel Grigoryan against the authorities was expected.)
Ter-Petrosyan has adopted the same method that was used during the Artsax movement in 1988, i.e. to keep tensions alive and shake the power until it cracks and instruments of power are surrendered to the opposition. This revolutionary tool partially worked in February, when the deputy prosecutor general, a number of Foreign Ministry officials, members of parliament affiliated with the governing Republican Party appeared on Ter-Petrosyan’s stage one by one, with two deputy defense ministers being there with their ‘hearts’.
If Sargsyan, who has inherited a government weakened by the shocks it has undergone, makes drastic personnel changes, the continuous mass rallies will prompt those who remain in power and those who come after the changes to pass to Ter-Petrosyan’s side under the threat of losing their positions.
Already some municipal community leaders and mayors with criminal notoriety threaten Sargsyan in private conversations that if the latter fails to approve their [re]election, they will side with Ter-Petrosyan, who openly welcomes everyone independent of his being a criminal or corrupt. (Despite the bodies of local government are formally elected, they have in fact been elected only upon the decision of the authorities since 1994-1995.)
In this way member of parliament Hakob Hakobyan (a.k.a. Lady Hakob), (see Mean Streets: A rare look at Armenia’s Capital clans) a representative of one of the most powerful clans controlling the Malatia community in Yerevan, according to ArmeniaNow sources, sided with Ter-Petrosyan during the election campaign after Serzh Sargsyan had refused to release his nephew sentenced for murder. As a response the authorities revealed a brothel belonging to him. Hakobyan is in prison at the moment on charges stemming from the March 1 events, while young “Levonites” stage rallies holding his and another prisoner Gagik Jhangiryan’s (notorious for using torture in interrogations) images. A peculiar character of the 2008 revolution is the idolatry when revolutionaries are ready to protect anyone who sides with their idol.
Ter-Petrosyan stated during the pre-election campaign: ‘By electing me, you elect Vano Siradeghyan’, a fugitive former powerful interior minister and mayor of Yerevan wanted by law-enforcers on murder charges. Ter-Petrosyan was likely sending a message by referring to Siradeghyan’s name, thus also reminding the years of his own rule, that he allows everything to be done if power is given to him. And if these authorities limit those who do ‘everything’, then they will bring another one.
On the other hand, the government has irritated the business circles by a crackdown that has also affected oligarchs to bring the shadow economy to the legal field and by delaying tax reforms. And business circles appear to be waiting now for the autumn outbreak to go back into shadow after the change in power. The new rise in world prices will add to the new increase brought by the fight against the shadow economy in autumn turning into a gift to the opposition.
Simultaneously, Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan’s open messages on woes in the state system as well as some steps to fight corruption mean a dangerous increase of the PM’s popularity for the opposition; at the June 20 rally Ter-Petrosyan attacked him by reminding the selling of the gold reserve in 2003 (See Cleaning House?: Prime Minister intent on sweeping out corruption ) to diminish the people’s trust in him, stating the true Prime Minister is Armen Gevorgyan.
To keep alive the anti-Artsaxi sentiments that are so necessary for the revolution after Kocharyan left, Ter-Petrosyan stated on June 20 that if it turns out that a special detachment from Artsax took part in the March 1 events, then the President of Artsax Bako Sahakyan must be declared a persona non grata in Armenia, stating on July 4 about already having ‘found out’ that those who fired shots were from Artsax. He also seeks police support, by saying that police did not fire any shots (contrary to his long speech on May 2 in which he tried to prove that the police had used weapons).
If we assume that the President and the PM really seek to carry out drastic reforms, then it is next to impossible for them to achieve a growth of their popularity between the “rock” of the opposition and the “hard place” of the corrupt system to be able to stave off the expected autumn rebellion.
The opposition knows from the March 1 experience that in the event of bloodshed the stereotype that authorities are always at fault will work. If blood is spilt by another provocation in autumn (it is easy to do: a shot from the people at police feet to instigate a response will surely entail casualties. More than a hundred police officers were wounded in the feet on March 1, but only the 10 victims are remembered now), then after occupying the streets once again in winter, the power will easily fall into Ter-Petrosyan’s hands.
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