Each period of time carries a need to be informed with political meaning on the basis of which a new politics is built, and this is a permanent process.  It is the calling of political figures to walk in step with the times, to reassess the past, and to develop projects for the future.  The competition among such projects is the meaning of political life.

What happened after what some consider the revolution, and others the regime change, of 2018 has not, it seems, been informed with meaning.  Simplistic formulations have been offered, such as “rejection of the former rulers,” “uprising of proud citizens,” “struggle against plunderers,” and other abstract but functionally devoid evaluations; still, political assessments of the “former rulers” or even the events of 2018 have not been given.  Without a determination of meaningfulness, a transition to a new political agenda cannot happen—that is what is recalled by the sad picture of Armenian political life which turns in large measure on mutual accusations and profanities.

The issue of forming agendas, or their absence, or the level and benchmark of existing agendas have always been problematic in the context of the Armenian political reality.  This is not a new phenomenon, and in this regard the current times are no exception.

The incumbent administration does not have an agenda for development of the state.  The extraparliamentary forces, too, have problems connected with the agenda and cannot formulate it, and the public for its part remains in uncertainty.

A year and a half after regime change, why are the present rulers constructing their rating on “rejections,” while the political opposition is unable to issue a retort to that “rejection” by way of a new agenda?   This is a most important question whose answer we must find.  But until then let’s make a few queries:

• Why in 2018 did the majority of the public participate in the anti-government demonstrations?
• Why didn’t the former authorities enjoy the public’s trust?
• Why are the new authorities targeting not phenomena but individuals?
• Why is the society of today polarized and what can unite it in order to build a new future?
• Why is today’s administration avoiding giving its predecessors a political assessment?

We are not preparing to present the answers to these questions.  They can be various, and should be found in the crucible of political struggle, and each political force or current which tenders a bid must offer the public its very own responses to the questions at hand and develop its project for the future and a political agenda based on its worldview and political philosophy.

The matter raised relates to the imperative of undertaking a meaningful assessment of the path we have traveled and now left behind, without which we will continue to be buried in the swamp of mutual hatred and reciprocal recriminations.  We will hate individual people, but will yet be unable to find the solutions to our many problems large and small, foreign and domestic.