Plan B: For the Opposition or for the Country? - Hovhannisyan

Former Minister of Justice Arpine Hovhannisyan has written: Plan B: For the Opposition or for the Country? Here are several conclusions from the shortest discussion of the government's agenda.

1. As expected, there was no substantive discussion. The reason was not the lack of issues to discuss; it was the agenda set by the ruling power and the opposition's entry into that agenda. In politics, the power is not only the ability to make decisions. It is also about determining what political debate will even take place. This is a key idea of agenda-setting.

The ongoing discussions surrounding the second president and his family during the government's agenda discussion were another manifestation of this. It wasn’t just about Kocharyan, and previously about Tsarukyan. It is politically naive to misunderstand that these are not isolated incidents but parts of a larger political process.

2. What you are fighting against is not the only factor. What matters is whose agenda you are fighting within. The force that has taken on the role of the opposition’s vanguard was banging on the tables of parliament for days expressing its grievances against a specific phenomenon, reaching a point where, at a crucial moment, Pashinyan constructed the situation in such a way that the tables no longer banged.

In his concluding speech, he addressed the Supreme Patriarch of All Armenians with both secular and spiritual titles, transforming the theme raised by the opposition into his own political capital and demonstrating the division and confrontation that he wants to build his political discourse around with just one sentence.

The opposition had amplified the political weight of the issue for days. In the end, Pashinyan took that accumulated attention and served it for his own political ends. Was this calculable? Yes. William Riker used the concept of 'heresthetics' to describe such political skills – constructing the political choice field so that even the behavior of the opponent starts working for your political outcome.

3. Pashinyan has a political strategy – whether wrong or right, dangerous, illegal, or unacceptable, it is a strategy. The opposition has political reactions. Almost all of Pashinyan's actions serve certain political objectives. Moreover, many of them have, in recent times, already been termed implementation of 'pre-election promises.'

It is not serious to react in astonishment each time with thoughts like 'did they really do this?' or 'we didn't think they would go this far,' rather, one should try to understand what larger process this step fits into and what could be next. Especially when building your own political discourse around the country’s catastrophic situation, the risk of losing statehood, and irreversible consequences.

If you truly believe those assessments, your political behavior should be commensurate with them. Otherwise, it creates the impression that apocalyptic and fatalist formulations have been so overused that the country's 'catastrophic situation' is no longer a political conviction from which action logic should derive but just a way of constructing political speeches.

Writing status updates, cursing, damning, fiery speeches are reactions. Purely. This means reactive politics: if circumstances dictate, we will go to the streets; otherwise, we will go to the Anti-Corruption Committee; in a third case, we will take another action. But the circumstance is not a plan.

4. When they ask, 'Do you have a Plan B?' it is not a question for fun. It is a political burden you have taken on and at minimum have not realized. But even now having it is vital; if not for you, then at least for the country. However, if the 'plan' is dependent on events anticipated from Russia, the West, Israel, the streets, the government’s mistakes, Paul-Peter, or some 'black swan', that is not your plan. That is an external circumstance. You can be a stakeholder and benefit from it. But you may also not be involved at all.

Political activity is not a political strategy. Nor is it an indicator of being unprecedented. Do not believe the sycophants. Especially those that you pay for.

If you have decided to simply work in parliament, say so. It is obvious that from the choice presented by Pashinyan: 'Put down mandates and make a revolution or work,' you have chosen or are forced to choose the second option. Although, I remind you, you did not promise this to your voters.

Do not present ordinary parliamentary work as some unique 'new methodology' for regime change with complex constitutionalized descriptions.

5. A few words on the 'qualitatively new opposition'. The force that has taken on the role of the opposition’s vanguard has, willingly or unwillingly, also taken on the political burden of that status. Obtaining the most opposition votes is not just an advantage; it is also a responsibility towards your voters and, more broadly, the country's political processes.

And at this point, it is particularly crucial for those conducting political casting and others to understand: there are no globally significant political figures in your team. Not even at a local scale. Moreover, there are almost no politicians at all.

This is not an insult nor a judgment on personal qualities. Being a politician is a profession that entails the ability to see political processes, predict several steps ahead, form your own agenda, recognize the opponent's agenda, and forecast political consequences. Especially when you do not take politics seriously, perhaps even despise it, excessive self-confidence and arrogance are more dangerous.

Moving with the logic of 'there is definitely something behind every criticism' or 'this definitely serves someone's interest' does not work in your favor. Sometimes it is worth not searching for what a critic wants but rather listening to what they are saying.

Because the issue is not political activity. The issue is political thinking. Apolitical behavior does not become political just by calling it 'political'.

Therefore, the challenge remains the same: to not become a qualitatively suitable opposition in place of a qualitatively new opposition. They take the mandate but have no plan for regime change. They do not shape their own agenda but enter the ruling agenda.

If the ruling power has a strategy, while the opposition has reactions, at some point, that ceases to be solely an opposition issue. It becomes a country’s issue.