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Press Review


“Zhamanak” says the decision by the Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) not to nominate or support any presidential candidate “raises numerous questions in the strategic sense.” “The first question is what the BHK will do after the presidential elections,” writes the paper. “Will it continue to operate as parliamentary opposition or will be forced by Serzh Sarkisian to sign a new coalition agreement? The situation is also delicate with regard to the Vartan Oskanian factor. Oskanian has actively advocated the BHK’s participation [in the presidential election] and even expressed readiness to run as a candidate. What will Vartan Oskanian do now? Perhaps his actions depend on what Robert Kocharian will suggest or order to Oskanian.”

“168 Zham” says BHK leader Gagik Tsarukian’s dramatic decision testifies to the “interconnection and incompatibility between business and politics, money and freedom, wealth and independence in Armenia.” “So Armenia is a country where money can buy practically everything except freedom, personal independence and the power to make decisions regarding oneself and one’s political team,” writes the paper. “For in Armenia, one can become as rich as Gagik Tsarukian only with the government’s connivance and sponsorship. And the government reserves itself the right to allow or ban the use of financial capital accumulated with its permission for one or another political purpose. While being one of Armenia’s wealthiest men, Gagik Tsarukian is in fact also the most unfree person. He would not have been unfree had he had the courage to disobey the decision imposed on him.”

“Tsarukian has been playing the role he is supposed to play: to ensure Serzh Sarkisian’s victory in the forthcoming presidential elections,” writes “Haykakan Zhamanak.” “So the main question is what those singing odes to Gagik Tsarukian were doing. Only one thing: ensuring Serzh Sarkisian’s victory in the presidential elections. And this tragicomedy has three episodes. Two of them are over. Very soon we will witness the third episode. But that will not be the end of Gagik Tsarukian’s role. Serzh Sarkisian plans to not only win the forthcoming presidential elections but also keep the entire political field under his personal control. Depending on the situation, Tsarukian will be given a certain role and that could be an opposition role.”

“If a political figure like Levon Ter-Petrosian can for months keep silent and silence his supporters, waiting for Great Tsarukian’s decision, it is unnecessary to even talk of others,” writes “Hraparak.” “All those who planned to run for president or unite and nominate a single candidate became hostages to the BHK’s decision. A lot depended on whether or not Tsarukian, who has won the hearts of the poorer segment of the country with benevolence, will run. In a way, that expectation was natural.”

“Aravot” says that while Tsarukian’s decision was the result of “economic and administrative pressure” from the authorities, the controversial BHK-centered strategy of the opposition Armenian National Congress (HAK) is “totally beyond logic.” “Of course, HAK supporters will continue to find words to describe the situation in optimistic terms,” editorializes the paper. “They may say, for example, that Tsarukian’s non-nomination was a triumph of Ter-Petrosian’s strategy or that it dealt a deadly blow to the kleptocracy … But it is now clear to any unbiased person that Levon Ter-Petrosian should not have waited for the nomination or non-nomination of other candidates under the guise of consultations. That has denigrated the first president’s political stature.”

(Tigran Avetisian)
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