Vazgen Manukyan was born in 1946. He holds a PhD in mathematics. He was a member of the Karabakh committee from February 1988. In December 1988 he was arrested along with with other members of the Karabakh committee and spent six months in the Matrosskaya Tishina prison in Moscow. In August 1990, he was appointed prime minister of Armenia, and he resigned in September 1991. In 1992-1993 he was acting minister of defense. He was elected to parliament in 1990, 1995 and 1999, and ran for president in the 1996, 1998 and 2003 elections. Vazgen Manukyan is the chairman of the National Democratic Union.

Mr. Manukyan, how would you assess the current political situation in Armenia? In your opinion, was the creation of a coalition government just an attempt to make the political forces who supported the president part of the government, or can this model be viable in Armenia?

Within parliamentary systems, this is a very natural thing to see - often one political party is unable to take the majority in the parliament, and several parties join together to form a majority and divide the portfolios among themselves. In a presidential system, this also takes place, but it is not as common. From a purely political point of view, I think it’s the correct approach.

But it’s clear that if the elections had been proper, there would have been a different distribution of power, and it still would have been correct for the forces making up the majority to form a coalition government. Robert Kocharyan doesn’t have his own political party, so the parties who made up the coalition strongly supported him during the presidential election and they, in turn, received his backing during the parliamentary elections to form the majority.

Of course, there will constantly be arguments within the coalition. Their approaches to foreign policy, and to political issues in general, differ. So it is natural that there will be disagreements. You yourself have seen that they had disagreements on personnel issues but those issues were somehow resolved. But whether these arguments will lead to the breakup of the coalition, it’s hard to say. At the present time, I don’t see it. The coalition may collapse if Armenia is challenged and every one tries to get his own way or avoid responsibility. For the time being, they will stay within the coalition, fighting and arguing.

The presidential elections in Armenia and Azerbaijan are over. What developments in the settlement of the Karabakh problem do you expect?

I will repeat the well-known idea that when there are no proper elections in the country, and people don’t have confidence in the government, and the government lacks authority in people’s eyes, then the signing of any document aimed at settlement will be almost impossible. In both Armenia and Azerbaijan, there will be elements in any proposal to settle the Karabakh conflict that will not please the Armenian people, and there will be elements that will not please the Azerbaijani people. Therefore there is the need for an authoritative government that enjoys the people’s confidence to be able to persuade the people that yielding something or gaining something is profitable for the country. Today both countries are in a very difficult situation from this point of view. I don’t think that a resolution will be imposed on the parties any time soon.

Of course, every one expected that after the elections there would be new proposals. But numerous processes are taking place in the world, and it is not as if the entire world is concentrating on the Karabakh problem. I don’t anticipate a speeding-up of the settlement of the problem. That is to say, before anything is proposed, negotiations will take place; then they will wait until something somewhere blows up.

Are you familiar with the differences between the Ter-Petrossian’s version of the settlement of the conflict and the one that will be proposed now to restart the negotiations?

The territorial integrity of Azerbaijan is mentioned in every proposal, directly or indirectly. It permeates all the documents. It comes from modern international practice, from the Lisbon statement, etc… The main issue that divided the society in 1997 was whether to solve the problem through a step-by-step approach or to have a package deal. The final solution will, of course, be step-by-step, but first, before we start, we must know which step in the time-table of the package will follow which step. In Levon Ter-Petrossian’s time, there was a proposal to take the first step, and then based on the other party’s word, expect that it would take the second step. And what if it wouldn’t? It was a senseless approach. From this point of view I am an adherent of a package deal which will be implemented step-by-step.

But in my opinion, the package should not just include the settlement of the Karabakh conflict, but be much broader. Economic, transport, and many other issues related to the region as a whole should be presented, and the Karabakh problem should be incorporated into the broader package. The Karabakh problem as a package by itself, in my opinion, has no solution.

Do the co-chairmen of the Minsk group and all those who take part in the negotiating process perceive the problem this broadly?

I don’t think so. Nothing has been done in this direction, and also when one sets such a broad task, everybody thinks that a solution to the task is so hard and hopeless that they avoid it. Let us consider what Europe wants in this region. Naturally, it wants peace at its periphery, not some eruptions that can spread and drag Europe itself in. Therefore, Europe is solving a problem of self-defense; it is not interested in harming either the Armenian people or the Azerbaijani. But if scenarios are proposed that would ensure the interests of Europe and would, at the same time, secure a new situation in the region, it will agree. Unfortunately, nothing of the kind is being offered. The South Caucasus, Turkey, Iran, Israel are just points on an earthquake in the region, and one cannot solve problems by just filling up small parts of a seismic fault line. That is why my ideas are sometimes perceived as romantic. I believe that unless a large-scale, global task is set and attempted to be accomplished-like the idea of a united Europe - then even if the Karabakh problem is solved at one point, the solution will be temporary. The fracture might open up at any moment. Therefore, a new union must be created in this region.

What is the inclination of Armenian society toward the resolution of the Karabakh conflict? Do you think people are tired, and are ready for any resolution, or does the spirit of struggle still exist?

The excitement of 1988, when an entire people stood up for Karabakh, is hard to imagine today. It is also hard to imagine the excitement that led people to action during the war, which we were able to win. On the other hand, the fact of Robert Kocharyan being the president of Armenia brought out, whether we agree with it or not, an Armenian-Kharabakhtsi antagonism within the society which never existed before. It was already clear before the 1998 presidential election that it would come to this. I spoke about it publicly, but Kocharyan maintained that such a thing would never happen. Samvel Babayan and Leonard Petrosyan also realized this very well; irrespective of whether he would be a good president or bad, a good person or bad, a legitimate president or not, such an antagonism would have taken place in any case. At the same time, if the Karabakh problem is raised, society as a whole, sincerely or not, will be against any proposed solutions, which will require big concessions on our part.

Why is the opposition in Armenia weak?

Politics, democracy requires several forces struggling with each other within some rules of the game. According to these rules, when one political force comes to power, the other knows that it has its place within the state, and will sooner or later either come to power or form a part of the government and be able to implement its programs. In Armenia, this situation doesn’t exist. Those who are in power stay in power; those who are in opposition stay in opposition, and ask themselves the question: “How long should we fight?” If the struggle is fruitless, and everything is solved through use of force, through bribery, all you see ahead is revolution or death. This is the situation. The opposition, of course, doesn’t have tanks to answer the tanks, and if it had it wouldn’t make sense to use them. The opposition is driven into a situation when it has to decide whether it should seize buildings or not. Thus the government puts the following question before the opposition: “Can you make a revolution or not?” Since the recent elections, a tide of disappointment is rising, not just within the opposition, but within the people as a whole. But it will not last forever. Disappointment occurs during the elections, but after a couple of years, the people forget all the bad things and struggle with the same enthusiasm for new elections. I believe that people recover in this sense, and sooner or later they will achieve their goal. But now it is the time of recession.

Was there a contest of ideas during the elections in Armenia?

Unfortunately not. When I would attempt to make ideological arguments, I felt ignored. The government is bad, and forces who want to change the government get together - this is today’s Armenia. People look to see where more people have gathered, who is more likely to change the government, and rally around them. Little attention is paid to ideas. I cannot blame the people because this comes from the government.

In Armenia all kinds of political struggle are black and white. Because there is a government who is gripping its seat and a force that wants to tear the government away from it. The people are in a hard situation and want to change the government. And they don’t pay attention anymore to what you say, they want to know whether you can change it or not. They say that in 1996 I was not able to change the government, and now we should try to do it through somebody else. Tomorrow they will try somebody else. This is a senseless game and it should be stopped. How? It’s hard to say.

Does that mean that the government always dictates the rules of the game and the opposition just has to deal with it?

No, if the government wants to hold onto power at any price, and the government is unable to satisfy the requirements of the people for the next 20 years, the people must close the ranks and say: “You in the opposition decide on a unified candidate, and we will support him; let’s change the government.” In this game the government is always the winner. We should stop the game. In four or five years there will be another presidential election. Many people wonder who will get as many votes as I did in 1996 or Stepan Demirchyan did in the last election. In both cases it was not possible to change the government. Then how we can do it? I will respond to that at a later stage.

The government wants to have the alternative that whatever votes it receives, there will be an explanation for holding onto power for itself. For example, in 1996 Ter-Petrossian tried to accuse me of nationalism in order to win. In 1998, what they used was Karen Demirchyan. It was clear in 1998 that if I, who had votes from the 1996 elections, stayed in the race alone with Kocharyan, people would vote against Kocharyan with some cohesiveness. They wouldn’t dare to send tanks a second time. Therefore, willingly or unwillingly, Karen Demirchyan played an important role. A new wave arose and Demirchyan began to get votes. They kept pulling at Demirchyan’s sleeve but it was too late - Demirchyan, already in the game, averted my threat to the government, but became a new threat himself. But they solved that problem. He too was labeled a representative of the old regime, etc...

This time, it was important for the government that there be no unified candidate. An Artashes Geghamyan-Stepan Demirchyan union would have been a real threat to the government. In addition to the natural discord that exists between them, the government employed efforts to prevent such a union. Of course, it was profitable for Kocharyan to have Stepan Demirchyan as his opponent, because it was very easy to persuade several tens of thousands of people, who not guided by emotions, but had something to lose in this country, that such an inexperienced young man could not lead the country. In the next elections the government will have to be able to find a vulnerable alternative political force-communist, fascist, inexperienced, or with unclear foreign backing. They have to think in this direction now to be able to win easily.

Is it possible that Levon Ter-Petrossian will be this candidate?

There are political forces with roots in the movement that want to rise to the surface through Levon Ter-Petrossian. I think that it’s a hopeless game. I don’t know what will happen years from now, but I believe that Levon Ter-Petrossian is not using the position he earned correctly. He is the first president of Armenia. If Levon Ter-Petrossian has no political ambitions to become president once again, but rather tries to play a role of a reconciliator, counselor, mediator, advisor in the political field, then step by step confidence and trust in him will arise among the broad spectrum of society, and in fact, he will accomplish his function. If you are the first president of the country, your function is not limited to the term of your presidency. After that, until the end of your life, you bear that responsibility. I was the first prime minister, the defense minister during the war, and until the end of my life, I bear some responsibility, and sometimes rightly, sometimes wrongly, I have tried to realize it. Levon Ter-Petrossian should not be excited by the prospect of becoming president again-and frankly speaking, I don’t even understand what he needs it for-but he should be able to become a person who has great influence over the political field.