Armenia: Political Dialogue Seen as Significant Breakthrough

Ongoing talks between the government and the largest opposition party will define the country for the next couple of years, but no one has any idea how, commentators say.

Representatives of the Armenian National Congress, which is headed by ex-president Ter-Petrosyan, have been holding regular meetings with officials for more than a month, although no agreement has been announced.

“You know what’s interesting? People come up with different reasons and aims why these sides are holding a dialogue, but everyone’s united in the opinion that the political process in Armenia in the next months, if not the next one or two years depends on it,” Karen Hayrapetyan, an independent political analyst, said.

The ANC’s Ter-Petrosyan lost presidential elections to now-president Serzh Sargsyan, head of the ruling Republican Party, in 2008. Mass protests followed, and ten people were killed when the police moved in to disperse the demonstrators.

ANC activists have consistently demanded fresh elections, and the release of jailed comrades, without result.

“Look, parliamentary elections are set for May 2012, and I struggle to see what the ANC has achieved via its tactics of trying to put pressure on the government and achieve its aims through mass protests,” said Arman Hakobyan, an expert from the Centre for Political Investigations.

“These tactic produced no results in the first elections after 2008, the elections for the Elders’ Council of Yerevan, when the ANC did not manage to win the city hall; and we saw that as a result of the ANC tactics many of the party activists ended up behind bars; and then last year there were disagreements within the ANC, and that meant several people left the opposition bloc who had been in Ter-Petrosyan’s team since 1988.”

The situation began to change at the start of this year. The global economic crisis hit Armenia hard, and the number of angry citizens rose sharply as living standards fell. The uprisings in Arab countries also worried the authorities, who saw the potential consequences of not listening to the opposition.

“Thirdly, there the problems of Nagorny Karabakh,” said Hakobyan, referring to the region where local Armenians have proclaimed their own state but which is internationally considered to be a part of Azerbaijan.

“Talks to regulate the Nagorny Karabakh conflict became more active at the start of the year, and the government needed internal political stability. I think that Levon Ter-Petrosyan understood all this and made the authorities an offer they couldn’t refuse.”

On March 17, Ter-Petrosyan spoke to a mass meeting of opposition supporters, demanding the release of political prisoners, the right to hold protests on Freedom Square and an investigation into the deaths on March 1, 2008. If these demands were fulfilled, he said the preconditions for dialogue with the authorities would have been fulfilled.

Suren Vardanyan, who worked as a political analyst inside government for many years, said the dialogue had given the ANC prestige.

“We can say that the government, by starting talks or dialogue only with the ANC, has officially recognised it as a force equal to itself. In the course of the last few months, this has increased the political influence of the ANC and changed it to the leading force in the opposition movement, which explains the negative reaction of other opposition groups to the dialogue,” he said.

“And since that’s the case, the government, which recognises this, will find it hard and possibly impossible to create any new order in the political field, without taking into account the interests of the ANC.”

This means that the ANC is now in the strongest position it has been in since the elections of 2008.

“And what has the government gained? Well, they’ve won some time, since in the intermediary period, which was very important for them, the ANC has not destabilised the situation in the republic. In fact, it’s turned out well for both sides, but the question has not been answered yet, quite the reverse, this is just a start and what will happen next?” Vardanyan said.

Levon Zurabyan, coordinator of the ANC’s central office, said activists had consistently made the same demand - that the country holds new presidential and parliamentary elections.

He said that, at the latest meeting on August 9, “the representatives of the authorities asked for a week to prepare their point of view”.

That was interesting in the light of comments from Ter-Petrosyan a week earlier that there would be a “final resolution of the political crisis in Armenia” in September or October. Despite that, representatives of the government continue to insist there will not be any fresh elections.

“ANC’s suggestion about the holding of early elections is in the interests of the Republican Party, but not in the interests of the people. The authorities would just take their places once more, and it would use up lots of resources, and the opposition protests would continue,” said Galust Sahakyan, the vice-chairman of the ruling party.

Hakobyan, from the Centre for Political Investigations, said it was extremely unlikely that the authorities would agree to hold early elections, since this would effectively mean surrendering to the ANC, and that the ANC knew that very well.

“It follows that, if the ANC is talking about unrealistic goals, they are doing it just to win a concession on other questions. That means it is more likely that the dialogue will continue in the autumn,” he said, but he cautioned against betting 100 per cent on a major alteration in the political landscape.

“Dialogue for both sides could be just a short-term issue, since the two sides simply cannot come to a long-term agreement with each other, because then they would lose their political support.”

Armen Pogosyan is a freelance journalist.