Arman Melikyan: Armen Sargsyan-RPA relations should be viewed first of all in the plane of Serzh Sargsyan-Armen Sargsyan
"A1+" spoke to Arman Melikyan, former NKR Foreign Minister, on Armen Sargsyan's nomination to the Presidential candidate. -- Mr. Melikyan, do you think that Armen Sargsyan has the right to run for presidency when the RA Constitution demands that the presidential candidate must be a citizen of Armenia in the last 6 years and reside in Armenia for the last 6 years? - In this regard, we must come up with the reality that the legitimacy of the current authorities of the Republic of Armenia, in fact, is zero. This is the consequence of the fact that during the last twenty years, the governing party has kept its grip on power through fraud, digital magic and bribery in electoral processes. In other words, at large, willingly or unwillingly, we have been forced to reconcile with the idea that in Armenia there is a de facto power, not legal. That de-facto government will seek to secure enough legitimacy and one of the steps taken in that direction was the constitutional "innovation" to change the form of governance of the state, and as a result, Mr. Armen Sargsyan has received an official proposal from the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) leader Serzh Sargsyan to run for president. It is pointless to examine the issue of whether this separate process is legitimate or not because the whole process of forming a governing system by the ruling gang in Armenia has been smashed for a very long period of time and as a result, the legitimacy of any decision taken is mildly suspicious. I attach great importance to what opportunities can be created from the perspective of forming a truly legitimate government in Armenia and whether the appointment of Mr. Armen Sargsyan to the position of the RA President may be positive in this context or not. I think he should, first of all, recognize that by accepting Serzh Sargsyan's proposal, in all cases he will become part of the de facto government and in that context his concern should be his powers and the opportunity to pay for this ultimate solution by means of a personal loan. In any case, this will be his personal decision, which he needs to harmonize with his own perceptions of his conscience and the future of the state. -- Is it possible for a non-party candidate to be the bearer of the ruling party's political line? -I do not consider the RPA structure as a group of people responsible for the political line developed jointly. The RPA is a governing organization of bureaucrats and businessmen, within which, it seems, the mechanism of decision making does not provide for collegiality in practice. Therefore, Armen Sargsyan-RPA relations should be viewed first of all in the plane of Serzh Sargsyan-Armen Sargsyan. If the relations are cloudless in this dimension, the RPA will not raise problems with Armen Sargsyan's activities and will not be dissatisfied. What I say is that this is first of all a personal matter and not a matter of the RA President-RPA relations. The rest is again the decision of Mr. Armen Sargsyan, his personal choice. -- What do you expect from Armen Sargsyan's presidency? --I am sure that Armen Sargsyan is a well-educated, stable person, and a serious attempt to make today an important decision for both Armenia and his own future. I wish him a true appreciation of his own strengths and realities. With regard to expectations, for a number of considerations, I find that he can personally play an important role, especially if Armenia enters the midst of painful internal troubles. But this opinion, of course, is theoretical.
