by David Petrosyan As was forecast by a number of experts and the author, the summing up of the parliamentary election outcome was followed by transformation processes in Armenia's political arena, and these processes are taking place not only in the camp of authorities, but also in the opposition ranks. Thus, the Republic Party led by former Prime Minister Aram Z. Sargsyan and the Liberal Party of Armenia led by Hovhannes Hovhannisian have left the Armenian National Congress (ANC). After all, the withdrawal of those two parties from the organization was anticipated. The Republic Party was one of the three system-constituent parties of ANC. It is, however, no secret that in the run-up to the elections, particularly, during the compilation of the proportional representation list, the party was displeased with the places assigned to her representatives on the list. For this reason all of them, except Aram Z. Sargsyan, withdrew their candidacies from the proportional list. Aram Z. Sargsyan made a statement to the effect that if ANC gets into the parliament, he will give up his MP mandate. We must say that the ex-prime minister was as good as his word and now instead of him the former Military Prosecutor General Gagik Jhangirian will receive a mandate of ANC. During the election campaign, the leader of the Republic Party and some of the party's functionaries actually sabotaged field work aimed at supporting the proportional list of the opposition, seldom took part in rallies and meetings held by the ANC and made speeches at those rallies only a few times. At the height of the election campaign, Aram Z. Sargsyan and two of his colleagues, without coordinating their steps with the ANC leader Levon Ter-Petrosian, left for Brussels where they had six meetings with European Commission officials of various levels, members of the European Parliament, and NATO officials. Out of the mentioned six meetings, three were those held with NATO officials. In an interview with Radio Liberty's Armenian Service, the ex-prime minister made an important statement to the effect that one of the reasons why he quit the ANC was that: - this organization takes a pro-Russian stance and that "only pro-Russian forces remain in the Armenian National Congress… I see the future of my country in Western standards… I don't see anything we can learn from Russia"; - the party led by him was against the prolongation of the agreement on Russian military base No 102 for another 49 years and the extension of the zone of its responsibility; - the Republic Party was against the ANC's cooperation with the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP), behind which the second President of Armenia Robert Kocharian is, according to the ex-prime minister; - in another interview he said that he also opposed the dialogue of the ANC with the parties of the ruling coalition. As is known, the dialogue conducted in the summer of last year ended in failure. In view of the aforesaid, we should note that: - it is incorrect to say that "only pro-Russian forces" remain in the ANC because it is more correct to say that Armenia-centered forces guided by state and national interests (security being the most important of them) remain in the bloc. A pragmatic by his political mentality, the leader of the ANC Levon Ter-Petrosian in the 1990s chose the course of strategic partnership with Russia, based on the political and geopolitical realities as well as taking into account a number of bitter (for Armenia) historic lessons of the early 20th century; - as far as we know, in 2010 the U.S. Embassy in Yerevan (Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch) wanted the ANC to make a special statement against the prolongation of that agreement, but the extra-parliamentary opposition did not do it. Why? Because Russian military base No. 102 in Armenia is an essential element of the country's security system and the military equilibrium in the region - it protects the Armenian-Turkish border, allowing the Armenian side to concentrate most of its forces and resources in the Azerbaijani direction. The amended agreement also envisages extension of the zone of responsibility of Russian base No. 102 and Moscow assumes responsibility for Armenia's security in case of threat of an attack not only by Turkey. On the other hand, NATO does not give any guarantees of Armenia's security in case of an aggression against the country, first of all by Azerbaijan and Turkey. As regards the issue of conflict resolution in the post-Soviet territory, the policy of NATO appears uniform: it recognizes the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, Georgia, Moldova, as well as of Armenia. True, the latest statement of the Chicago NATO Summit contains mention of the OSCE principles, too. Thus, the position of the ANC leadership on the Russian military base is conditioned by the country's state and national interests, rather than by some opportunistic considerations. Another thing is interesting: the Republic Party had full right to make a separate statement about the inadmissibility of the prolongation of the agreement on keeping the Russian military base in Armenia, but the party did not exercise that right in 2010; - it is not quite clear what Aram Z. Sargsyan means by "Western standards". By saying "Western standards", one can mean the system of democratic government based on fair political competition, also a non-monopolized market economy, and observance of civil liberties and minority rights, including political ones. The countries in the post-Soviet territory (except for the Baltic States), including neighboring Georgia, have approached some elements of these standards at best. The same West - through its structures (first of all, the Council of Europe and the OSCE) - has de facto recognized the rigged elections and referenda held in Armenia since 2003 and it has supported imitation democracy and the Robert Kocharian and Serzh Sargsyan regimes that the West needs. The Western human rights organizations have never recognized all those members and supporters of the ANC, including from the Republic Party, who went through the "slaughterhouse" of the ruling regime since February and March of 2008, as political prisoners or prisoners of conscience. The same Council of Europe considers as "closed" the page of the March 1, 2008 events that left ten people dead. Those guilty of those deaths have not yet been identified. But the same organizations consistently defend the rights of sexual and religious minorities in Armenia. So the main goal of the West in Armenia and the whole region is to force out Russia, that is, to solve its geopolitical problems, rather than to promote democracy, competitive economy, etc. There is no doubt that Russia is not a democratic state and a personification of justice, but the reality is that today Russia is the major guarantor of Armenia's security and that the remittances sent by Armenian guest workers from Russia are the main donor blood of the Armenian economy; - speaking about cooperation between the ANC and the PAP, we should note that these two political forces have cooperated de facto and de jure only within the framework of the Inter-Party Center for Public Oversight of the Elections. Based on the results of the elections, all the three political forces cooperating within the Inter-Party Center's framework (PAP, ANC, and ARF-Dashnaktsutyun Party) issued on May 11 a joint statement, according to which: total violations were committed during the parliamentary elections, the Central Election Commission (CEC) did not take measures against multiple voting by means of using records in passports, the voter lists and the official data on the turnout did not evoke much trust, while the election results do not reflect the true picture of popular support of the political forces. It should be mentioned that so far the PAP has not withdrawn its signature affixed to the statement. As for the issue of whether the ex-president R. Kocharian is behind the PAP or not, this point is at least controversial as in reality the former head of state is the major business partner of Gagik Tsarukian. We believe that this issue will finally clear up in the future. At the same time the ANC, too, can reprove the leader of the Republic Party in connection with his brother Armen's cooperation with members of the Republican Party of Armenia. This is something resembling the plot of famous Armenian film "The Saroyan Brothers" when one of the two brothers takes sides with the communists, while the other supports the ARF-Dashnaktsutyun Party; - as far as the dialogue of the ANC with representatives of the ruling coalition is concerned, it should be noted that the ex-prime minister has evidently forgotten something as he was one of the advocates of that dialogue and publicly backed it. Besides, the dialogue with the authorities was detailed in the constituent declaration of the ANC signed on 1 August 2008, i.e. it was part of the political program of the extra-parliamentary opposition. A question arises: If the Republic Party was opposed to the dialogue, why did it become part of that bloc? Moreover, the resolutions of all international organizations without exception, including the resolutions of the Council of Europe, required conducting a dialogue between the authorities and the opposition. Then what about the "Western standards" supported by Aram Z. Sargsyan? In short, one can say that two political forces, which are geopolitically oriented towards Brussels and Washington, have quitted the ANC. Most likely, in the autumn they will attempt to occupy a place in the niche of the radical opposition and will take to the streets, trying to win over part of the protest electorate. Time will show what will come out of it. There is relatively little probability that any other political forces will quit the ANC because the majority of them - despite all the shortcomings of their membership of the bloc - perfectly understand that their withdrawal from the united opposition may result in their disappearance from the political map of Armenia. As regards the ex-prime minister Aram Z. Sargsyan, apparently he can no longer be called the political successor of his elder brother. We should remind the reader that his late brother Vazgen Sargsyan, a former Defense Minister and head of the government, was undoubtedly a politician clearly oriented towards Moscow. Thus, it has become evident once again that close family bonds are not a guarantee that the political guidelines of the members of a family will necessarily coincide.

---