“Women have always carried the hardest tasks!”

Former journalist and political commentator, and now the head of the information service of the PPA and the Justice faction in the National Assembly, Khachataryan has long been inside politics as a commentator to the political processes, but not a politician. “That might be enough for me, if it were not for 1988 and independence. I was in constant confrontation with the management of Public (National) Television then, because I saw the way authorities distorted the political processes after independence and I couldn’t keep silent.” In 1994 Khachatryan was fired from the state television after she shot a film about the lawlessness on the side of the authorities and demanded to show it. “I did not manage to make them show my film, but I strained the relations and was fired,” recalls Kachatryan with a smile. Khachatryan returned to television in 1997 with a condition not to produce political programs, and created her own talk-show called “The Armenian Woman”, where she gave women an opportunity to share ideas including on political topics. Khachatryan betrayed the principle of non-alignment in 1998 when she joined the PPA founded by Karen Demirchyan as a protest against the “horrific falsifications of the elections”, although she had managed to remain independent even of the Communist party in the Soviet times.

A witness of the October 27th terrorist attack in the parliament, Khachatryan, who had been detained for organization and participation of demonstrations, was once again fired from the television in 2000, this time for her party affiliation.

“October 27th changed me a lot. Besides that I witnessed the murders, I saw also the injustice with which the trial was held and realized that it can’t continue this way. So I understood I had to struggle,” says Khachatryan.

The struggling woman says women have become more active and courageous in politics. But she seriously doubts if the political elite will stand such women’s existence.

“The political elite is much more reactive than the society. When I was running for the head of Kentron community administration I realized the society is one hundred percent ready to accept women into politics.”

Khachatryan says present-day politicians have largely defined politics as a male face.

“And it’s not much a sympathetic face. People feel the necessity to introduce women into politics,” says Khachatryan.

She fights against both the imbalance of current representation and the widely spread opinion that politics is not a woman’s business.

“They say it’s a hard task. But women have always been carrying on the hardest tasks!”

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