The mayoral election that took place in Hrazdan revealed the model that the establishment has chosen to guarantee a victory in the upcoming election. There will be no ballot stuffing, there will be no fuss in the electoral districts, the ruling parties will avoid any kind of unpleasant incidents as much as possible. Shutting off the electricity in the electoral districts was just retro, tribute to the traditions of 1990s, a pointless move, the effectiveness of which equaled zero – I think no such thing will appear again. Instead of all that, according to the project, bribing voters will play the decisive part, which, however, has been used since 1995, but the scale will be impressive this time. I think there is a breeding ground for such a “technology,” because the overwhelming sentiment in our society is the following, “All the same, this country will not improve.” If it is so, then what difference does it make whether those or these ones will win – we will earn a few pennies at least. To say that there are no grounds for such sentiments will be an exaggeration. Certainly, Sasun Mikayelyan is a more charismatic person and has served the motherland incomparably more than colorless and unremarkable functionary Aram Danielyan. However, even if Mr. Mikayelyan swears that he hasn’t bribed and hasn’t used the administrative resource to become an MP in the past, I, for example, will not believe him. Former powers that be are convinced or convince for some reason that they came to power, as a result of people’s profound love and the people hate the current establishment so much that they may vote for them only in return for a bribe. It seems to me that this is a deception – there is equal and deep indifference toward everyone. If the love toward the opposition candidate had been so irresistible, people wouldn’t have cast their votes for his opponent for 5000 AMD. Should one be surprised that his opponent does the same thing he did at the time?
Another fact – when the minister calls a citizen referring to him in the street a “bum,” when an ignorant and impudent MP calls his colleague an “ass,” we legitimately protest against it. One should react to the fact that Sasun Mikayelyan’s supporters call people (they believe thousands of people) who received bribes “swine” and “prostitutes” in the same manner. Let me repeat, particularly given the fact that the team that is the vigorous opposition today and protests against election bribery was first to use that practice.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
