“Unlike me, Tigran Sargsyan has made money”

Interview with ANC faction member, MP and former prime-minister Hrant Bagratyan

– What do you think about the government’s session in participation of the president on Saturday?

– There are two opinions about it; according to the first one the president is creating adequate conditions for making changes and replacing the prime-minister, and according to the second opinion the president did this to make them understand that he is not like before. I don’t know what the motives of this action were, but one thing is clear is that the president openly told the government that he joins the many people that do not like the way the government works and see that the statistics they report have nothing to do with reality.

This is what we have been saying during the past five years. On March 10, during the RPA general assembly, Serzh Sargsyan presented the government’s picture of the situation in the country. I do not want to sound arrogant, but his observations mean that he agrees with the people who criticize and do not like the way the government works. However, I don’t know if this means that he is going to replace the prime-minister. However, one thing is clear is that he announced about the fact that he does not like the way the government works.

Whether this situation was projected by the president, it is another topic of discussion. After this we will observe alienation between the government and president. Unlike the previous two presidents, Serzh Sargsyan was not keeping distance between himself and the government, authorities. Even more, Serzh Sargsyan has been identifying himself with the RPA. Time will come that he will do the same with his party as well to show that he does not take responsibility for their actions. In the future probably there will be also a meeting with the active of the RPA, where he will say the same. There have been preconditions for this as well. Even though on May 6 it was the RPA that was going to be elected, but Serzh Sargsyan was going to make a speech alone. The point was that “nobody would stand by him.”

The government received such message too, thus the presidential election in February is going to be a one-man election. He will not let anybody close in order to make him president.

– Do the critics mean that the president responds to the recent requests for replacing the prime-minister in order to take the initiative and imitate change?

– Sargsyan has a clear motive to say that in February they will decide the issue of the Prime Minister. He wants to emphasize that the matter with presidency is resolved because he’s going to be elected and advises the others to fight for the Premier’s post.

– And what was the point of strictly criticizing the government and not actually changing anything within the government?

– I think that he might be doing this for a protracted period of time.

– You are the former Prime Minister of Armenia. If you currently had held the post of Tigran Sargsyan would you have continued leading this post?

–  Of course not. I personally resigned in the beginning of 1996. If I was like him I would continue holding this post.

– In that case why Tigran Sargsyan doesn’t resign?

– Who needs Tigran Sargsyan as goods? If he’s outside the government he becomes a zero value immediately. However, he made quite money. We see that’s going on in the government, the whole budget management process, the situation within the Central Bank and the so-called reforms. We see how he appoints his relatives to various key posts. All this is a way to make money and nothing more. This means that unlike me, T. Sargsyan made some money. Sargsyan cannot even resign with his own request. It doesn’t fit in the rules of the game. You have seen what kind of criticism he received from Serzh Sargsyan. You have seen how he was trying to flatter the president by saying, “Mr. President, your thoughts are refreshing…” Why wouldn’t you refresh when we had been speaking about all this for five years now?

– Can we assume that the president still needs the premier?  

– The president doesn’t need the premier. He can govern without the premier. Vice versa in his speech he showed that he utterly doesn’t need the government.

– One of the key matters raised by the president was the violation of the law on purchases when bids are won by friend companies.

– The president looked at the prime minister and said that ultimately this law is not applied because the prime minister decides who should win these bids. This was the point of criticism.

– Do you think all these large-scale “kickbacks” are possible without the president’s awareness?

– In fact, no. But I cannot take the whole responsibility by announcing that he was aware for sure because I wasn’t present how they agreed to represent all this and what agreements or deals were reached. This criticism meant that the premier has done things that either the president wasn’t aware or didn’t notice them. The president would never criticize for the things that he had approved of. Or another option is left that the president might have called the premier and warned him that he would criticize him but without meaning it. The president might have told him not to pay attention the criticism.

– One of the most interesting points of president’s speech was when he instructed the prosecutor-general and the NSS to catch the “heads of the big fish” who are involved in the kick-back process.

– Yes, of course it’s strange because he’s the godfather of the big fish. But he was reprimanding the premier that it wasn’t his idea and that the blame should be put on the government and the prime minister. It means that when he’s saying that we should catch the heads of the big ones he wants to show to the society that the fight against the big fish wasn’t the premier’s initiative but his. The president dispersed the illusion that we have a premier who wants to implement reforms and that others don’t let him do so.

– Let’s speak about internal political matters. One of the most expected events is the speech of the ANC leader Levon Ter-Perosyan on September 21. What is your opinion about the current state of the ANC? And do you think Ter-Petrosyan will run again or not?

– I am not sure that he’ll make a speech but he might as well. I cannot say anything about the possibility of his nomination. I think the ANC needs to go a serious rehabilitation stage. In particular, I am dealing with that within the parliament because the strictest criticism addressed to the government comes from the ANC. But the ANC needs some rehab and hope that we will return to our previous route. ANC cannot be dependent on any other party.

In particular, I myself wouldn’t work for such a structure. But we all see that the ANC creates a serious political and economic counter-balance in the parliament due to our active participation and engagement. Serzh Sargsyan doesn’t have any other way except for taking the ANC program “100 steps of reforms” and implementing it. This would help Armenia to become a state. So the ANC should return to this, be open and be more cooperative and stop complaining. The key specifics of the route that I pointed out are the need of creating people’s capitalism within the economy, the need to be neutral in politics, abstain from being pro-Russian or pro-western. The ANC should gradually inculcate this culture in the politics. This would allow us to establish better relations with the neighbors because we will roll under this conflict. We should ensure that instead of 10 oligarchs we have 100 thousand entrepreneurs so that the country would be able to use its human resource.

– You mentioned that ANC should never sacrifice itself for the interests of any political power. In this regard, the ANC gets a lot of criticism for cooperating with the PAP. Is this matter being reviewed within the ANC?

– We should cooperate with the PAP but we also need to cooperate with the Heritage, RPA and ARF. But if we are fighting against monopolies we will have problems with the PAP as well if they don’t change their model. We shouldn’t have pro Russian or western parties. There should be a party that would be pro Armenian first of all. I don’t mean that our interests should countries the ones of Russia but often they might not match. And we cannot immediately become pro-western as our premier wishes. We clearly all know, including the premier that we don’t need accumulative pension funds but he promised this model to the west because the money will flow to the west. I am against this and whatever I am saying right now is addressed against several ANC members as well.

The new ANC cannot function in this way either, it should transform. In a way, we are returning to the point, which Ter-Petrsoayn brought up back in the day. We cannot see all these assassinations, these litigations and the millions of dollars worth of fines and the dozen of oligarchs that don’t let this country develop. We cannot tolerate the neighborhood authorities, who in the meantime are in politics and are oligarchs. They should be ousted and we should build a new Armenia. We are OK with the PAP, RPA and ARF fit in this logic.

– There are rumors that if Ter-Petrosyan doesn’t run for president the ANC might nominate Levon Zurabyan. What is your opinion about his possible candidacy?

– First, it’s wrong to speak about Ter-Petrosyan because he hasn’t said anything about nomination and second, I always said that if Ter-Petrosyan doesn’t run, I don’t have to endorse any other ANC candidate.

– Does this mean that you might be nominated by the ANC?

– I didn’t say that. I will behave in accordance with the situation. But let all others know that I don’t have any mother obligation. If Ter-Petrosyan runs, I will know who I am endorsing. If not him, then I don’t know that person.

– At any rate, will the candidate be from the ANC.

– Let’s assume so. But we cannot blindly endorse anyone. If I don’t know the person, his ideology, how can I endorse him? What if I endorse a wrong candidate? I don’t have the right to do so. People expect what Bagratyan will say in regard of economic issues. I don’t have the right to lie to them. For the time being, Ter-Petrosyan is the candidate with most authority. But even in his case, I should consent the above-mentioned principles with him. The peculiarity of the upcoming elections is that we should first accept the economic policies of the president than his political views.