On November 30, when the President of the European Commission Jose Manuel Barroso, the President of the European People's Party Wilfried Martens, the President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili and the Prime Minister of Moldova Vlad Filat were visiting Armenia to participate in the second summit of the European People’s Party (EPP) Eastern Partnership held in Yerevan, the Prosperous Armenia Party was making preparations for a Brussels visit. 

In an indirect response Gagik Tsarukyan showed that he fully perceived the EPP summit as a large-scale PR event for Serzh Sargsyan's presidential campaign in order to show the West's full support of the President to the electorate. Tsarukyan also indirectly confirmed that he lost out not only on that but also the Russian "front."

That was the reason why Tsarukyan's Brussels visit was organized quickly without making it more or less clear what the leader of Prosperous Armenia Party had to lose there, what he was expecting from this visit, and finally, whether those were personal expectations, or else connected to business, the party or the country.

Last year three Armenian parties (Rule of Law, Heritage and the Republican Party of Armenia) joined the European People's Party as observer-members. The Prosperous Armenia Party application was rejected. That party not only applied earlier than the others, but also three to four months prior made changes in its program provisions and regulations in accordance with the EPP's criteria and requirements.

The Prosperous Armenia Party was rejected not only for being pro-Russian, but also for its personal and economical connection with the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, who is persona non grata in Europe.

During the year and a half after the rejection the Prosperous Armenia Party didn't do anything to adopt European values and make changes. It did the opposite, emphasizing its almost genetic incongruity with that mentality and culture.

The Prosperous Armenia Party was the only one among the Armenian parties that supported Putin's idea for creating the Eurasian Economic Community and Armenia's joining it. The idea was perceived in Brussels as a means to counterbalance the European Union and prevent the further integration of the post-Soviet states and especially the six countries in the Eastern Partnership.

Basically, Tsarukyan went to Brussels without anything to offer the Europeans or receive from them. While the Prosperous Armenia Party was submitting its application to join the EPP in order to cover its ugly neo-Bolshevik nature with a European lining, the same is still happening. Thus, it is not determined by the understanding for a need to change, but by strategic considerations. Otherwise, Tsarukyan had to go to Brussels not as the owner of the Prosperous Armenia Party, but as its ordinary leader.  

It is possible that Tsarukyan comes back from Brussels having rich or scant information on meetings with European emissaries and officials. Thus, nothing can change because while Tsarukyan is running to Brussels, Brussels itself, embodied by Barroso and Martens, came to Armenia in order to demonstrate its absolute support for the ruling regime.

The European Union came to Armenia to claim that regardless of the Armenian election, it already recognizes Sargsyan's victory. The reservation has been made. If the President doesn't keep his promise to be reelected without clamor in the next most democratic elections, Armenia will not receive the financial aid that is being displayed in front of our government desperate for a new influx of subsidies. And Sargsyan should conduct such elections at any cost.

His chances are very high. The National Assembly's second elections in the single-mandate electoral districts of Avan and Gyumri dispelled all doubts: the government can get any result it wants. More importantly, no power could dispute the results of such elections, as it wouldn't have any objective evidence to prove voting violations.

Europe needs stable, not democratic, elections, meaning that Brussels needs a stable, predictive and adaptive Armenia, not an Armenia that respects democracy or human rights. They need a government guided not by its state interests, but the priority to go along with the international community. In other words, the European Union is creating an illusion of democracy and a false European values system in Armenia, and that requires Sargsyan as president because no one can solve this issue better than he.

This holds true especially when there is no alternative power in Armenia with enough resources for public mobilization and is trustworthy at the same time. That's something the European Union, the European Council and the Armenian government fully understands. The Republican Party is as incompatible with democratic values and culture as the Prosperous Armenia Party. It is as neo-Bolshevik as Prosperous Armenia. But for both of them a false democracy is the swamp where they can swim as much as they want.

Today President Sargsyan is visiting Turkmenistan to participate in the summit of CIS leaders. The Prime Minister of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin will be there too, and Sargsyan will meet with him separately. It has special importance for him as on one hand, it will alleviate the influence of the EPP conference, and on the other hand, he will finally get Putin's consent for him to visit Armenia, which is as important for Sargsyan as was Barroso's visit.

If he succeeds, he will eventually become a president "preferred by all centers." The question is whether that's enough to be a president elected by Armenian citizens and whether or not that's a task the president will put before himself.

Regardless, the strategies of the Prosperous Armenia and the Republican parties show that both of them are trying to find confidence and support abroad. It doesn't matter whether in Brussels, Moscow or Washington. It is essential for both the most powerful parties in Armenia, and generally for the "political elite", that support from abroad is more important than confiding in their own nation. No matter the contempt they have towards their own citizens, it's naturally impossible to respect an electorate that they have turned into a "client."