Hovanes Igityan: Today’s Armenia reminds me of the last years USSR

Will you
please describe the last events in the domestic political situation in the
republic? Does the movement headed by Raffi Hovannisian have prospects?

Raffi Hovannisian's movement is an attempt
to keep protesting moods high in Armenia. That's why he keeps
traveling the country and assuring the people that things will improve. I think
things are already improving. To speak against the regime is no longer a taboo
in Armenia.
You can openly say what they think and nobody will touch you. Raffi Hovannisian
is politically correct and non-aggressive in criticizing the regime, and this
is his personal merit. I believe that the key reason for Hovannisian's success
during the past presidential election was that he is not like the other
opposition leaders. "He is a man from the West – the world our people are
so eager to go to. His success was a surprise for both the regime and the
opposition - and I doubt that the latter would be able to get as many votes as
he did had he not run for presidency.

Does it
mean that refusal of these forces to run for president did not play a crucial role?

Prosperous Armenia and ARFD had each its own
reasons for not running for presidency, but their refusal to run was not
decisive for the outcome of the race. The key reason why Raffi Hovannisian got
so many votes is that people no longer trust the regime. Had Raffi Hovannisian
been different, the regime would have tamed him by offering him a post, a
business or some other benefit. But he has proved that he needs none of it. So,
now he has to take a step a classical opposition leader would take - he has to
make a revolution. I think that the regime has two ways to deal with
Hovannisian:  either to ignore him or to
start a dialogue with him. Serzh Sargsyan cannot ignore the problems his
country is facing. He must find a way-out. He must understand why his people
has refused to vote for him. He cannot ignore the man who enjoys so high
popularity.

Today's Armenia is like the Soviet Union
living its last days.  The Communists had
to do something to keep their country from falling apart. Yes, today our people
are not yet attacking the presidential palace, but almost half of them are no
longer willing to live in Armenia and are doing all they can do leave the
country.  Serzh Sargsyan can hardly be
efficient in his foreign policy with so weak positions at home.

As I understand,
the power prefers to place stake more on disappointment of the society with
Raffi, like in case of Levon Ter-Petrosyan…

  I don’t think
that the disappointment will be as strong as in the previous cases, as Raffi
did not promise anything.  He is
not using slogans like Serzh Go Away! and is not pushing the people to
overthrow the regime. He has just urged them to show who is the real master in Armenia.
And even if Hovannisian goes away, the people will not start loving the regime
just because the West loves it.

You
pointed at Raffi’s “western” nature. But if so, why did the West recognize Serzh
Sargsyan’s victory?

 They
in the West have stopped organizing color revolutions as they have seen that
any president will sooner or later do what they want. It is much easier to
control an illegitimate unpopular president than a strong electee. Such was the
case in Ukraine and Georgia.
The same is true for Armenia:
our president has caused no single problem to the West in the past five years,
has he? They in the West are satisfied with Sargsyan and see no need for
replacing him with Raffi Hovannisian. In his turn, Sargsyan hopes that the
people will soon lose faith in Hovannisian as they did in the times of Levon
Ter-Petrosyan.

Let’s
suppose that the West is merciful to Armenia’s joining the Customs
Union…

Unfortunately, the prospect of Armenia's
joining the Customs Union is revised only from the political, pro-power or
opposition point of view, and nobody presents the economic context. There are
zones of the influence interests in the geo-politics, which the powers of the
world ignore, as they think that these zones do not belong to them. It has
turned out that the West has got a special attitude to Armenia and CIS countries, although the West
recognizes the leading role of Russia
with few exceptions. The EU only says that any integration unions must not
contradict the obligations of Armenia
on the Contract on Armenia-EU Free Trade and WTO.  The given issue should be revised, first of
all, from the economic point of view: what benefits Armenia will have in case of
joining the Customs Union. Hundreds of parameters must be revised and analyzed
thoroughly. And only after that we can revise the prospects of Armenia's
membership in the Customs Union.

Levon
Ter-Petrosyan said at the congress of ANC that the party has come make a
bourgeois-democratic revolution in Armenia. What does it mean in today’s Armenian reality?

 The
statement by the leader of the ANC at the congress of the party was inconclusive  for me and other people in the congress hall,
as Levon Ter-Petrosyan did not open any brackets. For this reason, I think this
statement was not serious.

Ter-Petrosyan simply made an attempt to
justify some his steps, which I think were wrong from the very beginning. In
particular, to remove wealthy people from the power and to place stake on them
in the policy. Any steps of any party should be assessed by the society, raise
its rating, add trust and support, and increase the number of its supporters.
Speaking about the necessity of making a bourgeois-democratic revolution today,
Ter-Petrosyan just meant the necessity of withdrawal of two-three wealthy
persons from the power pyramid. In this case ANC mixes up the cause and
consequence.  From the economic point of
view, the availability of oligarchs in the power is wrong. But if, let us say,
Samvel Aleksanyan is removed from the power, and the power system is not
changed, somebody else will immediately occupy his seat, but he will be in no
way different from the given oligarch.

You said
that Armenia is more and
more like the USSR
during the last years of its existence. How can we overcome such a backwater?

 Should
those in power in Armenia
decide to develop their economy, they will be able to do it in a month by just
creating free market conditions. The best example is Kazakhstan, where elections are not
democratic either but where market relations are free and economy is
liberal.  They have no oligarchs or
monopolists. In fact, the Kazakh President is doing what his counterparts did
in Chile or China.
In the last years many dictatorships have shown an inclination to reform their
economies, which is not, alas, the case in Armenia.