Among the candidates for president, Raffi Hovhannisyan has conducted the most interesting and the most juicy election campaign. His meetings with ordinary people on the streets of our towns and villages, each one of them is an appealing story, journalistic material, which gives a picture not only of the way that candidate communicates, his human qualities, but also of our people’s sentiment, mentality. That is the very reason why that candidate has been paid the most attention in our newspaper and on our website; certainly, it is my rough estimate, since I don’t know the methods of calculation. However, it doesn’t mean that our information agency endorses Raffi Hovhannisyan’s candidacy.
First of all, let me say that the Heritage Party leader, being a very appealing person, is not my candidate. I am going to cast my vote for Hrant Bagratyan, and I can explain why. I am against JUST destroying, it seems to me, along with the very correct intention to destroy, the politician or the political force must tell what he is going to build instead of it. There were destroyers, those who used extreme rhetoric – the National Democratic Union (NDU), the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), and the Constitutional Rights Union (CRU) – in the 1990s too, but one can assert today that they not only did not destroy the vicious system, but also started after 1998 to contribute and some of them are still contributing to creating a much worse system than the one that existed in the 1990s. The Armenian National Congress (ANC), as opposed to the above-mentioned forces, had some programs, first of all, an economic one. The author of those programs was Hrant Bagratyan, and during this election campaign, he also put forward a program of political reforms and other programs. I will vote for those programs.
However, it is my personal position, as a citizen. I am very far from making appeals in support of any candidate. I haven’t asked Aravot’s employees whom they will vote for on Monday, because it is beyond our professional duties. I am convinced that an information agency, a newspaper staff should not take a joint position that it endorses this or that candidate; it generally should not be a mouthpiece of any political force. Otherwise, what that information agency writes or says will not be journalism, it will be boring white and black PR. The majority of newspapers and websites are engaged in that very occupation, and
by the way, the lion’s share of the negative assessments is given not to the incumbent president, but to the other candidates.
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If anyone expresses an opinion at Aravot, it is not Aravot’s opinion. In this regard, my opinion is not an exception.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
