Aram Karapetyan: If Prosperous Armenia Party supports Serzh Sargsyan's candidacy during presidential elections, it will considerably facilitate the electoral fraud

ArmInfo’s Interview with Leader of New Times Party Aram Karapetyan

• by Ashot Safaryan

• Wednesday, October 17, 11:38

Mr. Karapetyan, what possible scenarios of developments can you observe in the process around the ex-foreign minister of Armenia Vartan Oskanian and his Civilitas Foundation?

The situation with Oskanian is dual. On the one hand, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan has impartially very bad chances for re-election. Certainly, the experience of the past years demonstrates that it is not so difficult for the authorities to draw some figures to rig the elections. Under equal conditions, Sargsyan will be ousted by any normal candidate. Consequently, it is necessary to apply some election technologies as well. In this context, Serzh Sargsyan wants the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) to support him during the presidential elections. This will give an opportunity to the authorities to draw profitable figures, which would be more or less close to the reality. It is very hard to draw these figures without the PAP's support, as we all see the situation of the country and the low public confidence as a result of the authorities' policy.  In general, it is not hard to draw figures; it is much harder to be responsible for the drawn figures, because certain explanations and arguments will be needed. In the meantime, there is another version of actions against Oskanian. Serzh Sargsyan wants to make Oskanian a candidate in order to defeat him. There is nothing substantial in the Oskanian case, even from the legal point of view, that's all a soap bubble. Serzh Sargsyan cannot defeat a pro-Russian candidate. Therefore, the authorities have decided to "apply" to pro-Western Oskanian.

Do you rule out the probability that Moscow will stake on an alternative candidate given that Serzh Sargsyan is a pro-Western candidate? 

The thing is that Moscow itself does not know what it wants; the Kremlin's policy has reached a deadlock. The Putin policy "power works with power" is obviously not justified, because almost in all countries of the post-Soviet space the forces coming to power are mostly pro-Western. In order to make the geopolitical line of the big states and their impact in certain countries have succession and consistency, it is necessary to work with all the political forces in these countries. For a long time Moscow has been working exclusively with power in the countries where it had its impact, but these forces could not stay at power forever, and the other forces coming to replace them headed for Washington and Brussels. Today Moscow has come across the same problem in Armenia.

If we take a serious view of the situation in the Armenian-Russian relations, we'll see that there is nothing in this cooperation, except the military and political component. Certainly, the matter concerns $3 bln investments in Armenian economy, but we see no real results.  We are pro-Russian in the military and political context, but in all the other fields we became pro-Western long ago. Armenia even lacks a pro-Russian party in the tough sense of the word. There are pragmatists trying to establish good relations with both Moscow and Brussels. But nobody has an ideological similarity with Moscow. Even the Prosperous Armenia, which is considered to be the most pro-Russian party in our understanding, cannot be a pro-Russian party in the ideological sense. The capitals of our oligarchs are not in Russia. Moreover, the Russian elite itself has a pro-Western nature. Then what should we demand from our allies and friends!

Do you share the opinion that the opposition should nominate a single candidate for president? 

The mutual accusations between the opposition forces in Armenia minimize the probability of nomination of a single candidate at the presidential elections. Moreover, Armenia needs an alternative candidate, who is uncompromising and has a very tough position, but, unfortunately, there are no such people. All are connected by mutual arrangements and sometimes by dirt. If we watch the ongoing developments in many countries experiencing large political reshuffles, including the Arab countries, we can notice that the society wants to see at power a man, who has never been at power before. People have got tired of the same persons.  Radical changes are needed; it is necessary to liquidate the system of "elite mutual relations".

The new candidate should have not ties with the Ter-Petrosyan-Kocharyan-Sargsyan trinity. It is necessary to destroy this triangle and create new opportunities for new persons, new political forces, which are capable and, what is most important, eager to reform this system. I think the authorities will not stay at power long no matter whether they want it or not, even if they manage to retain power at the forthcoming presidential elections. Bloodless changes are one thing, and changes as a result of a rebellion are quite another thing. Unfortunately, the latter seems more probable to me.

Do you think it is impossible to improve the political and economic systems in Armenia as a result of activation of Washington and Brussels?   

I do not think that the relations with the EU and the so-called European integration will contribute to prevention of force majeure scenarios in Armenia and will change the situation in the bloodless way. The Armenia-EU relations themselves lead to no qualitative changes. We do not become European, on the contrary, we undergo degradation, and the reason is not our rapprochement with Europe but the fact that our country is undergoing quite different processes, which cannot be influenced by the European Union now. The ongoing processes in the country cannot be changed only by the foreign political factors; internal forces, factors and motives are needed. What EU are we talking about if the EU itself cannot deal with Greece, Spain, Italy, Portugal?! The EU has immense problems and has no time for us. In order to involve Armenia in the EU space, one should build a relevant world concept in the political, economic and legal aspects.  But nothing of the kind is expected, unfortunately.