As part of its ongoing chat with the opposition, the Armenian government on August 8 received an 87-page manifesto, which boils down to a single message for President Serzh Sargsyan: "Serzh jan, please resign and let me have a shot at the presidency. Yours truly, Levon Ter-Petrosian."
Ter-Petrosian, the ex-president and current opposition leader, has tried many avenues in the past to bring that message home. He has led people into the streets to protest and delivered fiery speeches, but his perseverance has been matched by Sargsyan’s stubbornness.
Now it's time to see if prose can succeed where other means of expression have failed.
At first glance, Ter-Petrosian, a philologist reportedly comfortable with dashing off scholarly works in Russian and French, as well as Armenian, might seem more than suited for this manifesto task.
In separate chapters, his Armenian National Congress (ANC) lists the alleged falsification of the 2008 presidential elections, corruption, mistrust of the judiciary system as among the reasons for early presidential and parliamentary elections (otherwise due in 2013 and 2012, respectively).
Levon Zurabian, the Armenian National Congress' chief negotiator, commented that the government's delegation listened "very attentively" to the opposition's complaints, RFE/RL reported. A response is requested by mid-August.
Nonetheless, whatever the ANC's writing skills, it seems fairly unlikely that Sargsyan, after reading its opus, will come out and say: "OK, you got me. Have your early election."
For one, the Armenian leader, chess buff that he is, has a past record of keeping the opposition treading water.
And, for another, Sargsyan left town over a week ago on a "short" vacation; he'll reappear on August 11 in Cyprus before jetting off to Kazakhstan for a Collective Security Treaty Organization get-together on August 12.
Not exactly the behavior of a president preparing to put his job up for grabs come mid-August.
Giorgi Lomsadze is a journalist based in Tbilisi, and author of Tamada Tales.
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