Manvel Sargsyan: Constitutional referendum is aimed at destroying the basis of Armenian statehood – the presidency institution

What are the core and the key goal of the constitutional referendum? 

The essence of what is happening is restricted to destruction of the presidency, which is subconsciously the basis of statehood in Armenia. By amending the Constitution, the authorities are consciously seeking to remove the fundamental mechanism of psychological legitimacy of power. This is being done to ensure the power retention amid collective irresponsibility. In Azerbaijan, Aliyev quietly stepped over the Constitution and went to the new presidency. It is not possible in Armenia, because otherwise the authorities would follow the example of Aliyev. However, today nobody knows what the decision of Serzh Sargsyan to run for a third term might lead to. Once people said no, they were not even able to raise prices for transport and electricity, leave Mashtots Park for themselves for the sake of the principle. How can they go for a third term? The authorities have enormous experience and understand what can and what cannot be done in Armenia. Meanwhile, all of their colleagues that have not understood or evaluated the situation properly found themselves in a state of Mubarak and Gaddafi. This referendum is aimed at the virtual elimination of Armenian institution of national elections. Let's call it so. The president will not be popularly elected, and the parliamentary elections, due to the second round, eventually will be reduced to a fiction. The emergence of the so-called stable majority, taking into account the existing government mechanisms, in fact, would mean the elimination of the institution of elections.

Actually, the rather “raw” draft constitution stipulates vague functions and responsibility of the state power actors. Don’t you think so? 

The reformed Constitution requires introduction of a very blurred political system in Armenia up to the fuzzy functions of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, a system based on the collective irresponsibility, a system, which seems to be designed and created by some shady government mechanisms. The question is what it all might lead to and whether there will be at least some degree of stability of control by the state. These questions should concern the Armenian society today, given that even Serzh Sargsyan, putting forward the idea of reforms, was asking himself the rhetorical question whether the draft changes ensure the stability of the government and the country's security. Today everyone can see that they do not. The lack of clear functions of the Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces violated the stipulation in any Constitution the required retention of mechanisms of governance in crisis situations. Meanwhile, in the Armenian Constitution under reforms there is no such a mechanism. Thus, one of the main features of the Constitution is blurred.

So, the ruling elite has also decided to evade responsibility for the fate of the country, hasn’t it? 

Some people in power just decided that they would now be able to run the state in a shady way. But such nonsense usually has a bad end, especially in a country like Armenia. In our country we have seen both revolution within the authority and shooting in the parliament in 1999, followed by a crisis situation, when almost half a year the army was not subordinate to the president.

Such examples of disability of power mechanisms in times of crisis in Armenia took place even under the current Constitution, which formally clearly stipulates the resolution for such situations. Under such a Constitution, in which all these important points prohibitively blurred, dramatically increase the likelihood of military coups. Amid the lack of a commander-in-chief, the Armed Forces Chief will be under the command of the Chief of the Armed Forces General Staff, who will be appointed by the president, but only under the nomination of the prime minister. This is enough to have the army left without clear control in the event of the slightest misunderstanding.

In response to the criticism against that provision of the “reforms”, their actual authors regularly refer to the Western countries’ experience…

There is no blurring in the constitutions of the Western countries. Civilized countries always describe the responsibilities. Meanwhile, in Armenia, it is not clear who the president is appointed by. Without any real powers, he has the sole right of appointment and dismissal of virtually all the key officials. And according to the new Constitution, no one in the higher echelons of power may be appointed or removed from office without his signature. It only seems that the president will now play the nominal role in the state government. For example, what will the Prime Minister do if the Chief of the General Staff refuses to obey him in an environment where the latter can be removed from office only by the president?

As far as I understand, neither the prime minister nor the president will have to decide anything. Everything will be done by the “party”, i.e. by the head of the party. 

They think that in the new situation everything in the country will be decided by one man under the guise of a “political bureau”. But no one can guarantee that this idea will successfully be carried out.      

Do you mean that such a system will demonstrate its incompetence in case of the very first force majeure?

Yes, I do. By running that risk, those people seek to retain the ruling political elite. But we already see that no one is insured against bankruptcy or dismissal. Such examples demonstrate that in the reality there is no “political bureau” in Armenia, because Armenia is not an ideology-driven country like the USSR. On the contrary, it is undergoing feudalization.    

In this case, what will the system be based on?

Regimes like the one in Armenia never design or forecast anything in advance for the years ahead and, accordingly, cannot see anything. That is why they periodically so cruelly fall worldwide. For example, the fall of the regime in Armenia may bring a new round of endless economic crisis, given that in our country the power, built on the money depends on money. And everything is going to be so. Therefore, they may have no time to finish their plans. The essence of what is happening in the eyes of the government - through the proposed policy framework is to jump over the next period of formation of government in 2017-18. The same thing happened in 2007- 2008, when Robert Kocharyan created the party and was planning to rule forever through it, but then suddenly went bankrupt. Then the power went to Republicans and to Serzh Sargsyan.

This time the matter concerns the situation inside the Republican Party.

Certainly. Over the last two years the incumbent president naturally began to be isolated, given that according to the Constitution he cannot run for a third time. It is equally natural that everyone else started to think about their fate. Then Serzh Sargsyan put a new Constitution to the "rest" that prevents the consolidation of power-hungry entities, including striving for his seat. Serzh Sargsyan invited them and Hovik Abrahamyan in the first place that model of power sharing, which in fact has no alternative. Thus, this circuit slows down, blocking any intrapower processes within the Republican Party, at least until the next election. But other real contenders for power today are not there.

So, the referendum is inevitable, isn’t it?

The key goal of Serzh Sargsyan is to divide the power before the elections, and then everything will remain in its place. And nothing will prevent him from taking the prime minister’s seat to continue to rule the country. The referendum is designed in the first place to solve the problem within the ruling elite, and only then the reproduction of power. The responsibility will be completely withdrawn from the political life. And there is absolutely no difference between the home and foreign policy. One thing is clear - it will completely destroy the sovereignty of Armenia, reducing its power to the level of the administration. And as it seems to the "secretary general "of the RPA Serzh Sargsyan, he will continue to govern the country out of the shadows, not being a president, prime minister or even speaker of the parliament. But all of these things are still rather vague.

Were the protests in Baghramyan Avenue a warning for the initiators of the constitutional referendum? 

I don’t think so. The situation in Baghramyan Ave was due to the fact that people simply could not remain silent after a rise in electricity price. And the fact that someone tried to use this discontent is a question of tertiary importance. It is important that Armenia has created a system of opposition to the power club of oligarchs and a society against the complete devaluation of political parties. And the spontaneous clashes in Baghramyan Ave were due to this situation.

Would you specify the key problem of our society that should immediately be resolved? 

The main task of any society is to form state power through free elections. This is the only key and mandatory feature of any society. All other issues are social. The problem in Armenia, like in many other countries, has not found any resolution. The society has not been able to resolve it and got a 20-year-old phenomenon of usurpation of power. And all our problems, including the constitutional referendum imposed on the society are the derivatives of this usurpation. Now the question is only related to the society's ability to eliminate this phenomenon, especially against the background of the countries that are periodically putting this challenge and achieve success in the 20th and 21st century: Chile, South Korea, Thailand and Eastern Europe countries. The solution of this problem by the society radically changes the position of all these countries. In Armenia today there are 100 parties, the whole program of which is reduced solely to the change of government.

The constitutional referendum formally allows us to start solving this problem by voting “against”…

Everything is possible. The "Electric Yerevan" movement could also solve the problem of the liquidation of the power so cloying to society, as the potential problems posed by them allowed it, if such a task was set. And most importantly, the problem to be resolved was given by these people very clearly and transparently. It is very important that our society is able to generate such movements, the ability to set specific targets and to confront them. The society is not aware of the key problems of the country. The fixed idea will never be realized, because the public, which must implement it, does not need it. The society gradually starts to understand the real situation, which manifests itself in the form of appearance of the various civil, apolitical platforms, completely devoid of the support of the existing political class. It is not surprising, given that sooner or later, this process will logically lead to the end of the easy life of this class, since people already understand the technology of change of power and they have only to apply it. There are a lot of successful examples. Many nations did so.