Word Game: Armenian opposition reacts to president’s public speeches

President Serzh Sargsyan’s interviews and major policy speeches in recent days have been largely viewed as pre-election talk and an indirect answer to the long list of demands put forward to the government by the main opposition Armenian National Congress (ANC) at its latest well-attended public rally on March 1.

But opposition groups appear to be largely skeptical about the prospect of any changes being brought about despite lavish promises by the president.

Continuing his drive for reforms announced still at the end of last year, on March 11 President Sargsyan hosted major consultations with key government members on economic matters, and the next day attended a major forum on agriculture in the winter resort town of Tsakhkadzor – as if emphasizing his earlier statement that agriculture, which saw a dramatic decline and dragged down the otherwise positive growth trends in the economy last year, remains a priority for government activities in the current year.

After some tough statements and strict evaluations given at the economy-related events (which were described by the opposition as “speeches in the Brezhnev spirit”, referring to the 1970s Soviet stagnation leader notorious for his long and empty speeches at Communist party conventions and other events), the president shifted attention to internal political issues at his press briefing with journalists, which also bore an arguably pre-election coloring.

Stressing that the government is “always ready to listen to criticism, suggestions, but only if such criticism and suggestions are aimed at specific problems, rather than are speculations for gaining electorates”, President Sargsyan said that despite difficulties and criticism the changes will be continued.

“Changes are always problematic, they are always painful, and, of course, any political force aspires to make problems serve its goals, but on the other hand I must say that we will continue the changes. There will be new developments in the police, judiciary, the customs and tax systems, and eventually [these changes] will lead to people being able to make a choice during elections and decide whom to give their vote,” emphasized Sargsyan.

(Already on Monday, Sargsyan participated in the meeting of the Police Collegiums during which he told the police top brass to carry out major reforms in the system, and, specifically, to ensure that the police remain politically neutral – a timely reminder against the background of accusations made by some opposition groups recently against some senior police officers of making political statements and thus effectively meddling in politics).

Despite the fact that the president shed little light on the specifics of the much-talked-about future changes, the very fact that more than a year before the next scheduled parliamentary vote and two years before the next presidential election, the incumbent speaks about changes and gives promises leads many to think of it as a sort of election manifesto, which, however, at the same time solves a more immediate task of cooling the mounting anti-government sentiments and resultant street protests led by the opposition.

“In other words, people are told to stay at home and wait for changes,” says Stepan Safaryan, the leader of the opposition Heritage Party’s parliamentary faction.

At the March 1 rally ANC leader Levon Ter-Petrosyan unveiled a list of more than a dozen demands, setting March 15 as the deadline for the Sargsyan administration to meet them, and the failure to meet all or most of them, he said, would be discussed at the March 17 rally and further actions would be determined.

While the demands did not explicitly contain a call for Sargsyan’s resignation (the main demand of the Armenian opposition in the past three years), it called for drastic changes in the police, tax and legal institutions.

According to Heritage’s Safaryan, the president’s vague words about upcoming changes are a “cunning step” by which he provided “very vague answers to the opposition demands”.

“Without [the president’s] clearly promising anything, but at the same time his noting that changes will be made in this system, a situation arises when willy-nilly, speaking in football terms, the ball is shifted to the opposition’s half,” Safaryan told ArmeniaNow.

Meanwhile, it appears the opposition is unwilling to play the game, as it does not seem to be satisfied with the president’s answer.

The ANC, meanwhile, said it would have probably taken the president’s words as a positive message, but for certain developments in recent days, when an opposition activist was arrested, on Sunday, for allegedly assaulting a police officer at the March 1 rally. (The opposition views it as a political motivated arrest; the family of the arrested man, a former boxer, insist he was protecting women from unlawful actions of plainclothes men who later turned out to be law enforcement).

“But for this latest impudent behavior of the police, perhaps we would have seen some positive message in that speech, but the arrest of Samson Khachatryan clearly shows that words and actions do not match,” senior ANC member Levon Zurabyan told ArmeniaNow.

Representatives of the opposition are also skeptical about the prospect of having any visible changes in the economy.

Pro-opposition economist Vahagn Khachatyan believes that “the instructions [issued to the executive] will end in another fiasco.

“This was another cheating reminiscent of election pledges. Like Soviet leader the current authorities also think that once they issue instructions, things will automatically improve, the productivity in agriculture will sharply rise and they will meet the targets. They don’t want to admit that the team that receives these instructions has already ruined the entire economy and is unable to restore it,” Khachatryan, a former mayor Yerevan, told ArmeniaNow.

Dashnaktsutyun, a parliamentary opposition party, is also skeptical about the prospect of seeing instructions related to the economy being translated into action.

Dashnak MP Artsvik Minasyan considers the president’s words “belated, but necessary”, which, however, “may bring about no result” in the end.

Source Publication: armenianow.com
Source: http://armenianow.com/news/politics/28236/armenia_president_serzh_sargsyan_opposition

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