Hello Yerevan
The leader of Heritage party Raffi Hovhannisian continues giving surprises to the Armenian people and not only. He not only returned from Moscow yesterday but also managed to participate in his rally. But the surprise was not only his participation in his rally. After his visit to Moscow it seemed that he would give a clearer picture to his vision of struggle. We were hoping that he would explain what made him go to Moscow and what he brought from there. But Raffi Hovhannisian not only didn’t do that but also thanked the public for the interest to his family’s private visit to Moscow. In the meantime, he announced that he had had meetings with a certain circle of Russian officials. Of course, there are numerous controversies in the activities of Raffi Hovhannisian and we cannot even talk about all of these.
But in this case the contradiction is very principal. A person who had gotten 540 thousand ballots states during the rally that he has gone to Moscow to meet with Putin and brought his victory to Armenia. After returning from Moscow he says that this was a private visit and also adds that he had meeting with certain officials. It is a different question whether it is moral to state that he wanted to go to Moscow to meet to bring victory to the people.
But the biggest contradiction is that he says he has met with “certain officials” while he was on a private visit to buy let’s say some chocolate. These may seem details at the first sight but they come to speak of a very important fact. Raffi Hovhannisian’s play card regardless of all the criticism and labeling, is his honesty or the impression of integrity that he has built within the society. After April 9 and his visit to Moscow Raffi lost his integrity, which was perhaps his key playing card in the unfair political environment.
On April 9, Hovhannisian promised to present his vision and the members of his future government. But he didn’t do so. Yesterday he only stated that he would continue the struggle. But for that he didn’t have to come back from Moscow so soon. And as it became clear from yesterday’s rally the struggle will be addressed to the mayoral elections of Yerevan. So his so called “for the sake of New Armenia” program the struggle will be directed to the campaign of Yerevan elections. It is no accident that next Friday Hovhannisian will hold a meeting inside a hall and not on the streets. This was perhaps a very realistic decision because yesterday’s rally included only a handful of people that could easily fit in a hall. It was perhaps a very realistic decision. So why did Raffi Hovhannisian go to Moscow? Most probably he went there to get the support of being an opposition. So do all the other oppositionists of Armenia.
By the way, the most shocking statement of Raffi’s rally was “when I was knelt down I turned into a four-leg animal.” He didn’t point out what animal he exactly resembled when he was on his feet. And two of the animals – the donkey and elephant are symbolic animals for two main parties in the US. He perhaps agreed to become the cornerstone of the dual-party system of Armenia. And as in Armenia the ruling party is the Republican party, which is not planning to leave the power we now can understand what animal Raffi Hovhannisian was turned into.
During yesterday’s meeting Raffi Hovhannisian stated that he might be paying visits to Brussels, Washington DC and other capitals. We would advise Raffi Hovhannisian to wait for the new replacing air company in Armenia after Armavia. Otherwise, it wouldn’t too fair to take the victory of the Armenian people from different capitals via Aeroflot or Air France.
By Robert Ter-Sargsyan
