There will be an election soon and it means that the competing sides will use against each other the thing that is called “PR technologies” in the “scientific language” and “mutilovka” (deception) in common language. It is not a really hard and effortful thing; one can provoke a fight in the family, work or any other environment using those methods. You approach X and say, “Do you know that Y told this about you?” That X, being a man of hot-blooded Caucasian character, naturally gets angry on the spot and says a thing or two about Y, which is naturally passed along to Y. After that, a shoot-out between those two is guaranteed. It is commonly called “message giving and taking.” In case of parties, political forces every mediocre journalist can do that easily, because our politicians are so self-assured, self-loving and think of themselves as such “tough guys” that they take every bait like that.
In a nutshell, opponents will look for “mines,” “cracks” and “splits” inside the coalition, as well as inside government-supporting and opposition parties in the upcoming months. Political interest is obvious here, seeming or real splits among opponents offer good opportunities. Basically it is not hard to find such things, since every group, including parties, is comprised of people with different experience, worldview and character. From the journalistic perspective, articles about such controversies are read with interest – it is a bit like TV series, when the next episode will be about X’s or Y’s response and it can theoretically last for a few months.
When we, mass media, focus on only controversies, other, more important issues raised during the pre-election period are pushed to the sidelines. At the end of the day, progress in the country will be guaranteed not by controversies inside the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) and the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) or, let’s say, the Armenian National Congress (ANC) or the Heritage Party, but by the policy adopted by the legislative branch, also taking into account that this branch is given many powers by the Constitution. However, those powers can play any role only in case of normal, working parliament.
…When someone in the office tries to show me his/her art of “message taking and giving”, I usually say, “Leave pointless conversations alone and focus on your work.”
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ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
