On April 9, 2008, Serzh Sargsyan was thrust onto the stage of total responsibility. Until then, he was subsumed in the shadows cast by Robert Kocharyan. Come the presidential elections of 2008, the current president used this factor to wash his hands of assuming responsibility of the former president’s actions. Despite this, Serzh Sargsyan inherited a somber reality of a debilitated internal social, moral-psychological, and political structure resulting from the cataclysm that was March 1st.

One would have assumed that that at the top of the list of priorities of the new president in his first year in office would be to wipe away the ruins left in its wake, to instill confidence in overcoming the crisis and neutralizing the legitimacy deficit of the regime both internally and externally. Today, however, precisely one year after Serzh Sargsyan de-jure assumed the presidency, not only have the existing problems not been answered but new questions have arisen. This state of affairs exists on all levels.

Social Life

The removal of the existing polarization, perhaps, should have been at the top of the president’s list of issues to tackle. Serzh Sargsyan’s call for public dialogue however didn’t elicit an adequate reaction. The problem was that the continued criminal and political persecution of opposition activists for the events of March 1 and widespread arrest weren’t exactly confidence builders. This was even more the case as all this was accompanied by the traditional way of doing business; by planting new mines on the part of the so-called “patriotic opposition”. This went to show that in reality the issue at hand was to blockade the uniform opposition field at all levels and thus achieve the political demise of the chief rival.  The “Public Council”, a body with no constitutional basis, was also designed to serve this end. After much delay, it was finally launched one year after being declared by presidential decree. This body was created to only resolve publicity issues and moreover it devalued the concept of parliamentarianism in general. This became especially apparent after it was revealed that not only was the “cream” of the palace intellectuals to be appointed as Council members but also members of those same disreputable “patriotic” pseudo-opposition forces.

Internal Political Motivation

These measures couldn’t really satisfy the demands of the regime because in the background there appeared the long ears of populism for all to se. Serzh Sargsyan was confronted with two immediate issues. The first problem was not to allow the united opposition to get stronger anew.  The second was, despite the presence of a ruling coalition, to create conditions leading to the status of an independent player and to get free from the dependence on his partners. To resolve the first issue the “March 1st Seven” case was used. First, the preliminary examination of this case dragged on to the extreme. Then, the court examination period, with the direct participation of the defendants, turned into a veritable comedy, a farce. In the end, when there were no longer any external pressures to be worried about, the case was split up, transferring its political context into a purely criminal matter. Of course, from this angle, all the expectations of the regime weren’t realized. The unexpected move by Levon Ter-Petrosyan to enter the Yerevan City Council race turned things upside down and reshuffled the deck. Serzh Sargsyan was again confronted with the priority of withstanding the struggle being waged by the united opposition. In other words, the “March 1st Seven” case performed it function only temporarily. Regarding the strengthening of his own political influence and getting out from under the dependence of the coalition forces, the achievements of Serzh Sargsyan in this context are more apparent. First, he finally and perhaps irreversibly placed the Republican Party which he governed firmly within his pocket, not allowing any semblance of an internal alternative tendency or the possibility of the manifestation of dissent. The removal of Tigran Torosyan as National Assembly president and the “appointment” of Hovik Abrahamyan in his stead solved that very issue. After taking over the Republican Party of Armenia (HHK), he went about forming his own political team and relied on the youth oriented MIAK party to accomplish this. By bringing the young leaders of this party into his team and into the circles of state government, Serzh Sargsyan raised the authority level of MIAK and its political impact. Today, it is apparent that the party is preparing for the 2011 parliamentary elections. All the while, Serzh Sargsyan was doing all possible to free himself from the shadow cast by former President Robert Kocharyan. Sargsyan’s speech at the last Prosperous Armenia Party congress, the position adopted by that party and Kocharyan’s response about the possibility of his return to the “big political game”, all showed that the current president adroitly solved that problem, at least for the foreseeable future. By appointing Gagik Beglaryan to the post of Yerevan mayor just two and a half months before the city council elections, Sargsyan proved to the coalition forces that he is in total control of the situation and is not dependent on their viewpoints or state of mind.

Socio-economic sector

After assuming the presidency, it became clear that the process of social passivity would lead to transforming political intolerance into social expectations. And the new president immediately set out to recognize and fulfill these needs, at least on a superficial level. The continuous arrest of mid-level government bureaucrats was aimed at proving that the regime was serious in fighting against corruption. However, this process of going after the “small fries” didn’t lead to catching any “sharks”, and thus it was clear to all that the regime’s anti-corruption campaign was more publicity-driven than a serious drive to weed out top-level corruption. What also proved that social issues were merely being tackled superficially was the drafting and passage of the state budget in 2009. Even though in the last quarter of 2008 there arose many difficulties in ensuring budgetary inflows, not only did the 2009 budget increase in relative terms but in terms of expenditures there was a definite focus on social items; wages, pensions and other items saw increases. By the first month of 2009 it became apparent that it wouldn’t be possible to execute the accepted budget and that the deficit was much larger than planned for. And while the government declared that social expenditures would continue apace, what is happening today is that these costs are being incurred at the expense of other budgetary items that are being delayed or cancelled outright. We will experience the effect of this process in the fall when the “birds come home to roost”. Parallel to this, as of the end of 2008 the RoA Central Bank adopted an incorrect policy regarding the regulation of the financial market sector when it went the route of a fixed exchange rate in order to prevent drastic inflationary rises. As a result, the nation’s financial reserves decreased by some $400 million. By returning to a floating rate, the government finally was forced to accept a 25% price rise and a drastic devaluation of the Armenian dram as a given, with all the social and economic consequences that resulted from such a process. In other words, the social sector targeting of the budget offered nothing to those it was designed to assist, especially the most socially vulnerable classes. Simultaneously, by strengthening the tax-related bureaucracy, the government brought those engaging in private enterprise into the taxable sector. The implementation of cash registers was closely scrutinized which essentially increased the tax burden of small and mid-sized businesses. This lead to an expansion of large enterprises; they basically gobbled-up their smaller competitors. What resulted, even given the conditions of such a heavy crisis, was that the government failed to remove economic monopolies, the freeing up of the market and ensuring market competition.

Foreign affairs

A more active foreign policy was readily apparent. Serzh Sargsyan made good on his promise to adopt a more pro-active approach which is to be seen on two fronts in particular – Armenian-Turkish and Armenia-Azerbaijani affairs. In conjunction with settling the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the Prague process lead to the signing of the Moscow Declaration and later the Helsinki accords at the end of 2008. These reaffirmed that Nagorno-Karabakh wasn’t a party to the negotiations and that the principle of national self-determination was applicable only in the context of territorial integrity. However, as a result of Armenia’s pro-active stance, the Azerbaijani side put into circulation a rather incomprehensible thesis regarding the joint coexistence of Armenian and Azeri communities in Nagorno-Karabakh, and given the stony silence of the Armenian side, it stubbornly began to defend it during the ongoing negotiations. Official Yerevan stated nothing more than the right of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh to self-determination must be respected, without noting whether or not such self-determination could be realized within the framework of Azerbaijan. Turkey, on the other hand, became more involved in the Karabakh settlement process than ever before during the past year. The foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan met under the auspices of Turkey and the Minsk Group co-chairs underlined the constructive role of Turkey in the settlement process on several occasions. In essence, two totally dissimilar processes took place – the merger of the Armenian-Turkish thaw and the resolution of the Karabakh-Azerbaijan conflict. This new hybrid process soon took on regional import. The foundation for this was laid immediately after the five day Russian-Georgian war in August, 2008, when Turkey, attempting to divvy up the region with Russia, floated the concept of creating a Caucasus Stability and Cooperation Platform with the assistance of Russia and began to bring it to life based on its own national interests. Armenia was drawn in to these processes spontaneously; being forced to assume the status of one whose only role is to react. Furthermore, the initiatives of Armenia served as the basis for the recognition of the Armenian Genocide on the world stage to be pushed to the background to a certain degree. Recently, while in Istanbul, U.S. President Barack Obama made it pretty clear that if Armenia and Turkey showed true political will regarding the opening of the b order and resolving other outstanding issues, then it was possible that he wouldn’t describe the events of 1915 as “genocide”; that’s to say he wouldn’t honor his election campaign pledge. The only positive result of these processes can be seen as the measures being taken to open the Armenian-Turkish border. For this to occur, in essence, what remains is to overcome the powerful pressure exerted by Azerbaijan on Turkey;  pressure which Turkey seems unable to free itself from. As to what price will Yerevan pay in return for the border opening, today, no one can say. Whatever the case, it is possible to state that the social uncertainty in both the internal and external political sectors as well as in socio-economic terms hasn’t lessened during the past year. Looming on the horizon is the super-politicized Yerevan city council election. The sitting president is confronted with the challenge of coming out of the election with his honor intact. The election will either bolster Armenia’s credibility on the world stage or undermine it even further. The second year of a Serzh Sargsyan presidency must be one in which answers are provided to these mounting problems that the nation faces.