Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) President Gagik Tsarukyan has announced that he will be reopening the page of his political activity, which came to an unceremonious halt in 2015, and that he will be participating in the April 2017 parliamentary election with an extensive alliance.

Politics in Armenia has long since turned into a circus doorway through which, as a rule, jugglers, acrobats and clowns can freely enter at any time.

In Armenia’s political circus, the role of Tsarukyan hasn’t changed all that much since 2004, when he founded the BHK. In all subsequent elections, Tsarukyan has buffering role for the political regime in power, guaranteeing its relatively smooth reelection and becoming its bulwark of continuity and security.

It was only during a short period after the 2012 election that the political section of the BHK, and especially Levon Ter-Petrosyan, the HAK leader enraptured with the romanticism of the “bourgeois-democratic revolution”, encouraged Tsarukyan by telling him that the people accepted him as a messiah, and that he possessed all the possibilities and rights to become the ‘conductor’ of the new period unfolding.

It only took one session of the Republican Party of Armenia (HHK) to bring Tsarukyan back to his senses. Afterwards, in the space of two days, they removed Tsarukyan from the circus and shut him in the regime’s so-called ‘political technologies’ storage locker.

Now, they have returned to free him from storage. The regime feels it’s time yet again to let Tsarukyan play his natural, but most responsible, role in terms of political timing.

The moment is truly demanding for several reasons. First, given the conditions of the new electoral code, when the regime has mostly given up on the traditional means of electoral fraud at polling stations, it must replace these important and well-oiled means by strengthening two levers.

First, is the work to mobilize the lumpen electorate to the polling stations – to get out the vote – by employing all its organizational, financial and terrible semi-criminal resources. The other, is to totally monitor and control, to the extent possible, the reformulations in the political landscape.

Generally speaking, it’s a familiar methodology, but with two pivotal reservations. The regime must implement this methodology via the model of parliamentary governance, via the untried proportional rating voting system, in which any loss of position can no longer be compensated, given that there will not be another state-wide election in the next five years.

Then, too, the number of MPs in Armenia’s National Assembly will drastically decrease, thus inherently increasing competition for each seat. The realization that this is the only chance to disrupt the situation, obligates the splintered and marginalized political forces to consolidate. This is automatic and based on political logic.

The self-flowing and unmanageable process of such consolidations can create a large unpredictable effect for the regime, which, in such conditions, usually finds itself out of time and under internal disruptions.

Tsarukyan is like the baton in the hand of the ‘great conductor’, beating out the rhythm to the orchestra and moving it around to his liking. In this context, bringing Tsarukyan back into the game, seeks to counter any centrifugal consolidation processes in the opposition camp and to gather them solely around Tsarukyan.

The moment is also decisive and laden with responsibility because the parliamentary governance system dictates that the authorities create altogether new conditions and traditions to guarantee its smooth and secure reproduction of power under a formal democratic electoral system. Simply put, to create a system where, in a formal context, the fundamental rules of equal competition for elections are maintained, but the conjuncture always leads to the victory of the conjuncture, regardless of those in the game. In other words, the imitation of democracy will replace the boor methodology.

The reason is clear. The greatest risk to the regime emanating from the parliamentary system of governance is political instability and the creation of new political configurations that can alter the balance of power and can, in a matter of hours, turn a political force enjoying a majority into a minority.

There is no need for additional commentary as to what this signifies for the regime in the case of a political culture possessing ‘splendid’ traditions of a rat race. If we imagine for a moment that the 2008-2011 Ter-Petrosyan pan-popular movements, or those centered around Tsarukyan in 2014-2015, grew not in a semi-presidential system (actually, super-presidential) but rather a parliamentary one, in which all the enforcement bodies were answerable to a government enjoying the confidence mandate of the National Assembly’s majority, then, there would have already been several velvet revolutions or revolts.

The regime is welcoming Tsarukyan’s participation in the April election, even though it labelled him an evil political force just two years ago, forgetting that the formation of the idea not to turn the homeland into a circus was due to his factor, and that, until today, the charges levelled against Tsarukyan of avoiding taxes and of forming some criminal gangs remain up in the air.

If there anyone out there with half a brain that questions whether Tsarukyan is returning or whether he is being brought back as an agent. This is all the more plausible since Tsarukyan had nothing to say about these charges in his ‘return’ announcement.

The regime is playing a two-sided game to foment confusion. It wants Tsarukyan to be seen as an alternate to the regime, and thus to coalesce opposition force consolidation around him, while at the same time creating an aura of mistrust and uncertainty towards him.

In a country with a healthy political system it’s impossible to imagine that an individual who served in a pivotal official post, continuing his tenure, can suddenly become the campaign director of an opposition or alternative alliance.

In Armenia, such nominally maintained conventions are being dismantled, and the president of the Control Chamber becomes a member of the opposition, or a pivotal player in a political force with such ambitions.

Now, the voter and all small and large forces that pin hopes on Tsarukyan, are forced to ponder whether he’s a member of the opposition or not. Does he wish to foment regime change or a change of the opposition.   

If he’s not an opposition member, then what are all those in his camp exclaiming that he is doing? Why are they, in the name of getting a place in that alliance, cooperating with such people whom they charged, in the past, with the most serious of crimes, and with whom they are on vastly different political-ideological levels?

What is their aim? To become a tool for the reproduction of the regime? To realize the childish dream of becoming a member of parliament? Are they being manipulated by Tsarukyan or the other way around? Who are they deceiving? The public, the regime, Tsarukyan, or themselves?