Artashes Geghamyan: Shatter power in National Assembly elections, usurp it during presidential elections

YEREVAN, AUGUST 17, ARMENPRESS. Active discussions on the draft Constitution have been continuing in Armenia for a month. The analyses of numerous articles, interviews, speeches by civil society representatives, constitutional law experts, despite the diversity of their content, allow making certain preliminary conclusions.

First, the active discussions of the suggested Constitutional reforms, on one hand the protection of the concept of its need and the rejection of the urgency of this issue on the political agenda on the other, as well as promoting the thesis of the requirement of current Constitution implementation, absolutely give rise to certain contemplation.

Second, unsubstantiated allegations strike the eye that by Constitutional reforms one should not expect social-economic improvements in Armenia. Somehow peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is also connected with lack of need of the new Constitution. They say it will not become an impetus for breaking the oligopoly and eliminating the oligarchs. Many opponents of reforms, not analyzing the content of the Constitutional reforms, conclude that the reforms are only aimed at retaining the power of the Republican Party headed by President Serzh Sargsyan.

According to the author, in case of the current Constitution, during the elections of the president of the Republic of Armenia and the National Assembly, the allegedly existing “legitimacy deficit” and the absence of “absolute confidence in the voting system” will play no role, and in case of Constitutional reforms it is a different story. It is hard to blame the author for his naivety. The intention is clear. To destabilize the situation during the coming parliamentary elections.

In such conditions the authors of the strategy will have a possibility of violating the norms of democratic elections; in the presidential elections succeeding the parliamentary ones by means of scaring and bribing usurp the power which had shattered them thus making revenge.

I would like to dwell on the most interesting “anti”argument of Constitutional reforms that the former Foreign minister presents: “The political environment is completely unfavorable for radical Constitutional reforms. There is no consolidation around the idea. Greater political, civil and social consolidation is required for a radical change in the government system.”

The commemoration events dedicated to the centennial of the Armenian Genocide organized in the Ottoman Empire showed that all the prerequisites for political, civil and social consolidation are created in Armenia and the Diaspora.

Artashes Geghamyan –MP of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia, theHead of the OSCE PA Armenian delegation, President of “National Unity” political party