What kind of successful and unsuccessful steps has the president Serzh Sargsyan made during his almost 100 days of activities?

I should start with the unsuccessful ones because at this moment it is difficult for me to mention the successful steps. Any president must, first of all, manage to maintain good relations with the existing allies, adding to their number. Sargsyan did not do it – moreover, it is obvious that his relations with RPA (that is not the ally of the president but is considered to be the main political force he relies on) are not very good, no matter how the Republicans insist on the opposite. There are just 3 Republican ministers at the government, and the press secretary of the president is not Edward Sharmazanov from RPA that was the press secretary and the PA coordinator of the party during the parliamentary and presidential elections but the chairman of UNLP and former CofL member Samvel Farmanyan. There is yet another essential detail – the talks about Hovik Abrahamyan becoming NA chairman. As a result of them, as unexpected as it was, Tigran Torosyan chose to abstain while voting for the NA statement on the implementation of the PACE 16-09 resolution.

By making a statement in Moscow about launching a joint Armenian-Turkish commission, the president also managed to introduce coldness into the relations with ARFP. Dashnaktsutyun already knows they cannot trust Serzh Sargsyan as much as Robert Kocharyan. Actually, it was not accidental that Robert Kocharyan said in his latest interview that, if he were the president, Gyul would not be invited to Armenia – this was a message specifically targeting ARFP.

The president also hurt the feelings of influential individuals: he announced in Moscow that the community in Russia is big but disorganized, whereas it is Ara Abrahamyan that is involved in organizing the community. There is another fact as well – recently the press has been constantly circulating the news on dismissing Aghvan Hovsepyan from work, and Serzh Sargsyan does not consider it necessary to publicly announce that Aghvan Hovsepyan is not going to resign.

But the president also has been making improvements in the tax and customs bodies, the state car inspection system, as well as conducting changes in the area of human resources management.

I do not believe in those improvements. As for the improvements at the state car inspection, Robert Kocharyan had started them, even stating that they had been over. What has Sargsyan been improving? Even if he improves, we know that the affect will stay for a couple of months, and that’s all. After that, everything will take back its course.

And what was the president supposed to do?

He keeps talking about increasing the public trust. However, it would have taken just a few steps to achieve that: opening A1+, granting citizenship to Zhirayr Sefilyan, and conducting fair trials. For this period, Serzh Sargsyan managed to do its best so that the public simply hated the judicial system.

But the public has never liked that system.

The people have never liked and respected it, have never trusted in it but we cannot say that they have hated it as much as today. The trials going on since March 1 have made that hatred deeper.

The steps that you mentioned could have been perceived as political concessions to the opposition.

But concessions have been made anyway. I cannot understand why it was declared that the June 20 gathering was not going to take place but it did, that the July 4 gathering was not going to happen but it did. They said there was not going to be a march but it happened. All these things were not concessions. Moreover, they were defeats. To date, Serzh Sargsyan keeps losing.

Why? What is the reason for that?

This is just the result of the fact that Serzh Sargsyan doesn’t know what to do – that’s why he keeps making mistakes one by one.

How long can this continue?

I think this cannot go on like this for long, which might lead to extraordinary presidential elections. If Kocharyan decides to actively take part in the upcoming local elections through ARFP and PA, probably, they will be followed by extraordinary parliamentary elections.

In general, is the summary of Serzh Sargsyan’s 100 days very much different from Robert Kocharyan’s 100 days?

Surely, it is. When Kocharyan replaced Ter-Petrossian, I felt that the president of the country has changed. Also, we immediately noticed it when Kocharyan became prime minister. Serzh Sargsyan works worse than Kocharyan.