The hazy Armenian political skies are about to be clouded by a terrible thunderstorm. Seems that Raffi Hovannisian’s heritage party is experiencing a shake up as three of its members have been accused of collaborating with pro-Ter Petrossian and evenpro-government elements behind everyone’s backs. Last week, Movses Aristakesyan, Vartan Khachatryan and Zoya Tadevosyan, all of whom had prominent positions in the party, were kicked out of the ranks, although all of them rejected their expulsion citing a lack of quorum at the decisive meeting of the party’s executive body.
Meanwhile, Hovannisian, a former foreign minister, tendered his resignation as a parliament member representing the Heritage party, which has seven seats. He is purportedly to be replaced by another party member. There’s no official word yet as to why he resigned.
What makes things even more strange is that Hovannisian is not in the country, and there’s no telling when he will be back. Tadevosyan is already spreading rumors that he has even resigned from the party, although that information has yet to be confirmed or proven false. Hovannisian has yet to make any comments about his role with the Heritage party or its fate.
Of all the Armenians politicians out there Hovannisian has always been arguably the most honest and approachable. I finally had the privilege of meeting him in 2007 when he was running for a seat in parliament just outside the polling station in Nork-Marash, and I came away from our very brief conversation feeling very confident of his success. Some people I have spoken to believe that he is noble and true to his word–actually a lot of Armenian citizens think the same way. But I think he is also generally perceived as being too passive. I for one was hoping that he would be a lot more vocal in defiance against the protocols for instance by holding a rally, but he did publicly condemn them, which stands for something.
Hovannisian has always had a hard time getting a more prominent opposition role in Armenian political life because of repression from pro-government forces, not to mention vote falsification. He has been harassed several times in the past with the government shutting his office down and even confiscating the computer equipment as well as all other party possessions several years ago on some absurd charge that I can’t remember offhand. President Kocharian was clearly afraid of Hovannisian because of his huge popularity and did everything in his power to discredit him, although it never worked. Now he’s out of town, and we can only guess what he will announce when he returns.
Upon his arrival hopefully he will not make a statement that he is retiring from political life, because that action will simply be a blow to the opposition and the chances of turning things around in Armenia socioeconomically for all those who need change the most and politically so that the rule of law will finally function properly in Armenian society.
Raffi, if you are reading this, stick around.
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