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ROTATING AROUND PRESIDENTS: KOCHARYAN'S "SHADOW" A CURSE OR A BLESSING FOR ARMENIA?
By GAYANE ABRAHAMYAN
ArmeniaNow
ANALYSIS | 20.11.12 | 13:57
Photo: www.2nd.am
Armenia's domestic political life that reminds a poor "family tree"
with interwoven branches of the three presidents' offspring, will not
be free of the "circulation" of the presidents for many more years
ahead. The most influential among them, nonetheless, is the second
president's "shadow" periodically emerging behind one political
force or individual or another and stirring up the logic of the
"genealogical" development.
Despite the fact that Armenia's second president Robert Kocharyan has
been out of political processes for at least the past five years, his
"shadow" and "omnipresence" do not leave alone either the opposition,
or the authorities, or the society.
At least twice a year since the end of Kocharyan's decade-long
presidency in 2008, news have been circulated on Kocharyan's return;
with the same frequency the second president shows up to give an
interview or make a statement reminding the society about his existence
and denying the opposition's claims of his "political demise".
Kocharyan's possible return is among the most discussed subjects and
the most often condemned political prospects.
The answers to why the potential revival of "kocharyanism" - a term
introduced by oppositionist David Shahnazaryan - bothers the society
and the political forces so much can be found not only in the realm
of politics but also social psychology.
The period of Kocharyan's presidency was rather controversial.
The bloodiest events in the two decades of independent Armenia's
history happened during his rule - October 27 [1999 parliamentary
shootout] and March 1 [2008 deadly post-election clashes], on the
other hand those were years of the construction boom and "tiger leap"
of economy.
>>From the psychological viewpoint Kocharyan's periodical response to
political events and issues creates subjective and objective situations
prompting people to discuss him and keep him in the focus of attention.
"Since his responses are rare and become an event in our political
life, appearing in the focus of attention, the ideas and thoughts he
voices become messages with subtext, which further get interpreted by
various forces however they want," psychologist Armine Ghazaryan, an
expert at the Armenian Center for National and International Studies,
told ArmeniaNow.
The expert, nonetheless, stressed an important circumstance of
collective public memory - to the society Kocharyan's "tenure isn't
over, he carries a burden of liability remembered by the society
which is waiting for answers".
"Kocharyan's figure cannot leave the field for as long as people half
"a sense of incompleteness". In order for us to be able to move on to
the next, more democratic stage of civil society development, we have
to be able to free ourselves of the three presidents' whirlpool. But
the society, maybe subconsciously, is unable to turn the "Kocharyan
page" because of the resentment it holds against him," she says,
and adds:
"The "Kocharyan complex" has another facet to it - he is remembered
among people as the "punishing" president. Let's take his university
mate's murder (in a cafe Kocharyan's bodyguards beat Poghos Poghosyan
to death because of approaching the president and addressing
him "Rob"). From this perspective there is an element of gloomy
anticipation of his return."
Nevertheless, the most recent history tells a different story:
Armenia's first president's tenure was also quite turbulent and
controversial, but the challenging years of energy crisis, the
gratification from the hard-won war, the accusations of him founding
the vicious circle of corrupt regime and setting the tradition of
fraudulent elections, his unexpected resignation - it all fell into
oblivion with time.
Ghazaryan believes that first president Levon Ter-Petrosyan took
advantage of his decade-long silence.
"First of all, the attitude to Ter-Petrosyan was different - regardless
of the fact that in 1996 he took the presidential chair by force, he
is still perceived among the society as a symbol, because of being
the first president. His silence helped him to simply become part
of independent Armenia's history. The criticism of his presidency
is not personified, and is more against the system on the whole than
against Ter-Petrosyan personally," says the psychologist.
At the same time Ghazaryan stresses that when the first president
re-entered the big politics, people put aside their still living
memories of the hardship they saw during his tenure because "the
purpose and the need for his return were correctly formulated and
presented"; people joined him not because it was Ter-Petrosyan, but
because they saw him as a candidate or as he called himself "a tool"
to achieve change of power.
Whereas in Kocharyan's case the development of the information field
has been working against him - if in five years after his resignation
Ter-Petrosyan was hardly remembered and only a limited group of people
had access to any information about him, today's level of development
of information technologies makes "forgetting" Kocharyan almost an
impossible task.
Although political analysts stress that the news about the presence
of Kocharyan's "shadow" is circulated on purpose to let him be left
out of the political field, from the psychological perspective it
is the ever-presence of that very "shadow" that keeps people from
forgetting him and, by doing so, forgiving him.
From: A. Papazian
By GAYANE ABRAHAMYAN
ArmeniaNow
ANALYSIS | 20.11.12 | 13:57
Photo: www.2nd.am
Armenia's domestic political life that reminds a poor "family tree"
with interwoven branches of the three presidents' offspring, will not
be free of the "circulation" of the presidents for many more years
ahead. The most influential among them, nonetheless, is the second
president's "shadow" periodically emerging behind one political
force or individual or another and stirring up the logic of the
"genealogical" development.
Despite the fact that Armenia's second president Robert Kocharyan has
been out of political processes for at least the past five years, his
"shadow" and "omnipresence" do not leave alone either the opposition,
or the authorities, or the society.
At least twice a year since the end of Kocharyan's decade-long
presidency in 2008, news have been circulated on Kocharyan's return;
with the same frequency the second president shows up to give an
interview or make a statement reminding the society about his existence
and denying the opposition's claims of his "political demise".
Kocharyan's possible return is among the most discussed subjects and
the most often condemned political prospects.
The answers to why the potential revival of "kocharyanism" - a term
introduced by oppositionist David Shahnazaryan - bothers the society
and the political forces so much can be found not only in the realm
of politics but also social psychology.
The period of Kocharyan's presidency was rather controversial.
The bloodiest events in the two decades of independent Armenia's
history happened during his rule - October 27 [1999 parliamentary
shootout] and March 1 [2008 deadly post-election clashes], on the
other hand those were years of the construction boom and "tiger leap"
of economy.
>>From the psychological viewpoint Kocharyan's periodical response to
political events and issues creates subjective and objective situations
prompting people to discuss him and keep him in the focus of attention.
"Since his responses are rare and become an event in our political
life, appearing in the focus of attention, the ideas and thoughts he
voices become messages with subtext, which further get interpreted by
various forces however they want," psychologist Armine Ghazaryan, an
expert at the Armenian Center for National and International Studies,
told ArmeniaNow.
The expert, nonetheless, stressed an important circumstance of
collective public memory - to the society Kocharyan's "tenure isn't
over, he carries a burden of liability remembered by the society
which is waiting for answers".
"Kocharyan's figure cannot leave the field for as long as people half
"a sense of incompleteness". In order for us to be able to move on to
the next, more democratic stage of civil society development, we have
to be able to free ourselves of the three presidents' whirlpool. But
the society, maybe subconsciously, is unable to turn the "Kocharyan
page" because of the resentment it holds against him," she says,
and adds:
"The "Kocharyan complex" has another facet to it - he is remembered
among people as the "punishing" president. Let's take his university
mate's murder (in a cafe Kocharyan's bodyguards beat Poghos Poghosyan
to death because of approaching the president and addressing
him "Rob"). From this perspective there is an element of gloomy
anticipation of his return."
Nevertheless, the most recent history tells a different story:
Armenia's first president's tenure was also quite turbulent and
controversial, but the challenging years of energy crisis, the
gratification from the hard-won war, the accusations of him founding
the vicious circle of corrupt regime and setting the tradition of
fraudulent elections, his unexpected resignation - it all fell into
oblivion with time.
Ghazaryan believes that first president Levon Ter-Petrosyan took
advantage of his decade-long silence.
"First of all, the attitude to Ter-Petrosyan was different - regardless
of the fact that in 1996 he took the presidential chair by force, he
is still perceived among the society as a symbol, because of being
the first president. His silence helped him to simply become part
of independent Armenia's history. The criticism of his presidency
is not personified, and is more against the system on the whole than
against Ter-Petrosyan personally," says the psychologist.
At the same time Ghazaryan stresses that when the first president
re-entered the big politics, people put aside their still living
memories of the hardship they saw during his tenure because "the
purpose and the need for his return were correctly formulated and
presented"; people joined him not because it was Ter-Petrosyan, but
because they saw him as a candidate or as he called himself "a tool"
to achieve change of power.
Whereas in Kocharyan's case the development of the information field
has been working against him - if in five years after his resignation
Ter-Petrosyan was hardly remembered and only a limited group of people
had access to any information about him, today's level of development
of information technologies makes "forgetting" Kocharyan almost an
impossible task.
Although political analysts stress that the news about the presence
of Kocharyan's "shadow" is circulated on purpose to let him be left
out of the political field, from the psychological perspective it
is the ever-presence of that very "shadow" that keeps people from
forgetting him and, by doing so, forgiving him.
From: A. Papazian