Everyone resigned
Twelve years ago this day, an exclusive political event took place in Armenia.
The ruling party, including representatives of the Armenian National Movement and highest ranking officials, resigned from office one after another.
As a result of political discrepancies, in a matter of days, Armenia was left without a government with the resignations of not only supporters of the government, that is, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, but the NA Chairman and two vice-chairman.
This was an exceptional phenomenon, as well as a uniquely ideological and principled political action in the history of our country. Switching teams has turned into a lifestyle in Armenia's political field.
"A1+" asked the head of the ruling parliamentary faction why there is no culture of resigning as a team in Armenia.
"I don't think the resignations of the time were a matter of political culture, but a matter of principle. The entire nation had different tendencies, including the political forces and the Armenian National Movement. The ANM could not have continued with its motives for power in such a conflict," said Sahakyan.
But several hundreds of thousands of people and the government have differing tendency today as well. In response to that, Sahakyan said: "In other words, the people finds that we have to give Karabakh back, while we say that we should not give Karabakh back. The position of the majority of today's authorities and political forces is that Karabakh can never be a part of Azerbaijan. Everyone believes that we must have roads to Turkey. The concerns are a different story. So, there is an essential difference between political principles. Back then, the orientation was that Karabakh could have stayed within Azerbaijan with a special status," said Sahakyan.
If the government didn't want to resign, nobody would force it to do that, like what happened in 2008 when the rallies with the demands of hundreds of thousands of people did not lead to a resignation. In response to that, Galust Sahakyan said: "An entire wing of government was against the policies led by Levon Ter-Petrosyan."
We asked Sahakyan if he believed that the entire team would resign in the case of Serzh Sargsyan's possible resignation. "Of course, that is a norm applied around the world, but it only happened once in Armenia."
Head of the ARF faction Vahan Hovhannisyan said: "I would tie the culture of teamwork with the ideological grounds. If the team was created with an ideology, if it is the ruling elite, it is obvious that the team will work together and resign together with the same goals, methodology and the same ideology. However, if the team is created for financial interests or interests of one group, it is impossible to expect any unity."
Vahan Hovhannisyan recalled that the resignations of 1998 are the only resignations in the history of the Republic of Armenia. "The ARF left the coalition and we all left government."
Are those who claim that only the Armenian National Movement and the ARF are ideological in Armenia? To this, Vahan Hovhannisyan said that those people are not wrong.
