The developments taking place within the Heritage Party of Armenia go to show that the political field is slowly reverting to the stagnation that characterized it before. Starting with the return to politics by Levon Ter-Petrosyan in August, 2007, the “black and white” relative political landscape that appeared after March 1, 2008, is consuming itself.

The collapse of Heritage was first and foremost a blow to the party itself and the forces of the opposition. During the past few years, Heritage was able to transform itself from a party directed by national values to a liberal one within an ideological mold. The party’s leader was able to assemble young, able, far-thinking forces around him. An intellectual political image was formed that had definite political positions. Raffi Hovhannisyan was able to steer the party clear of the stereotypes within those parties centered on an individual by creating a liberal decision-making system within the party. This free and total opportunity for expression and advancement created the groundwork to attract able minds to the party. These characteristics, the ever present to follow-up on the defense of national and human rights problems, transformed the party into a national-political value. With its middle ground, and according to the principle of smoothing out the rough edges, Heritage played a unique mediating role between the opposition and regime and created a platform of dialogue with other oppositional forces. In this sense, Heritage conducted much work to reduce socio-political polarization. Surely, the current political situation laid the groundwork for the collapse of this party along with certain subjective factors. In reality, a situation was created in which it was conducive for the basic players on the internal political level to see Heritage rendered useless.

The Opposition Factor

HAK (Armenian National Congress), the other powerful opposition political force, continually treated Heritage as a competitor and not a partner. HAK always sought to absorb Heritage within its ranks. HAK clearly understood that Heritage’s growing stronger would primarily strike a blow at the diverse and often centripetal forces at the base of the Congress, and thus its sometimes shaky unity. If HAK was able to remove Heritage from the political scene, it would remain the only lord over the opposition forces in Armenia. There was no other alternative force that could attract the national-conservative forces congregating in HAK. HAK needed to have Heritage as a dependent, subservient force only for the reason that it could use Heritage’s podium in the RoA National Assembly. It is no accident that the first to comment on the problems of Heritage was the non-official newspaper of HAK, its mouthpiece,

The Regime as a Factor

In the parliament, Heritage had no real impact on decision-making. Thus, the regime didn’t see it as a threat. However, Heritage did pose a threat to the regime on the extra-parliamentary front, especially regarding the shaping of public opinion when it came to political processes. Heritage could have had a serious impact on the formulation of societal attitudes when it came to Armenian-Turkish and Armenian-Azerbaijani confrontations. Furthermore, such a groundwork could have given way to a non-supervisable for the national forces; the regime. It is no accident that it has been Heritage that has issued the most principled of positions and proposals to avert the current situation arrived at by the two protocols directed at normalizing Armenian-Turkish relations. This would not have allowed the regime to assume its obligations both in terms of Armenian-Turkish reconciliation and the Karabakh settlement process. With Heritage having been neutralized, the ARF also has been given the opportunity to manifest itself in the opposition camp on the ruins of the party.

Subjective Factors

However, the main reason for the crisis has been the illogical and passive stance of Raffi Hovhannisyan, the leader of Heritage. In reality, the internal party crisis began from the point when Mr. Hovhannisyan refused the post of party president and then his membership in Armenia’s PACE delegation. By sending a secret letter regarding his decision to leave the party and politics in general, Mr. Hovhannisyan effectively ratified the collapse of Heritage. It is hard to say what the motivation for all this was. However, the fact remains that Mr. Hovhannisyan let the process run its course, full well understanding that each statement or decision he made could have saved the situation. He could have explained what was going on within the party to the public and who was really at fault. This was a very serious blow to Mr. Hovhannisyan’s credibility as well and his actions have left a sense of mistrust in many and have branded Mr. Hovhannisyan an unprincipled political leader. The second subjective factor was the party’s financial crisis. The sides battling within the party themselves didn’t notice that they raised a question of concern to all to the surface by their actions – namely, how is the party financed? Truly, many are now baffled over the real source of Heritage’s finances and why the well has dried up particularly now. It is evident that the isolation of the leader and his indecisiveness regarding the party’s future should have prompted Heritage Party young ambitious activists to solve this problem Heritage has been defeated. However, all of society has lost as well; the entire political field and the nation. A party is leaving the public arena that was also a socio-political presence as well.