A few days ago, during a live TV show on one of the Russian TV channels, one of current and future President Putin’s proxies, former Minister of Emergency Situations Sergey Shoygu, presidential candidates Sergey Mironov and Mikhail Prokhorov, as well as representative of the League of Voters Leonid Parfyonov “unanimously voted” for signing an agreement on holding fair elections. The next day, pro-government political scientist Sergey Kurginyan really prepared such a document and Shoygu’s ministry invited all the candidates to come to their ministry and discuss the draft agreement. Candidates were naturally offended. Why should they come and discuss some text, when it is obvious that the “main candidate” will not come and discuss. In a nutshell, the draft “social agreement” survived only for two days and was not passed by anyone at all. Zyuganov said that such a document would be important, only if it was signed in Kremlin with participation of all candidates, including Putin.
I think it will not be important even in that case. If you remember, before the 1998 presidential election in Armenia, a few candidates, including Robert Kocharyan, signed a similar agreement. However, the election that followed, in my opinion, was the least fair, since it was obvious that the majority of voters voted for Karen Demirchyan. (By the way, I was not among that majority; I voted against everyone). Therefore, both the speeches of a politician and the documents he signs are worthless in Armenia. At the end of the day, why should a person nominated illegally, who hadn’t lived in the country for 10 years, uphold some “gentlemen’s” agreements?
Therefore, if it occurs to some party during the upcoming parliamentary election to sign such an agreement, let them not waste time; it is pointless. When the powers that be say that they will hold a free and transparent election, I believe them as much as I would believe young opposition “red guards,” if they promised that they would not curse in the streets and in the press and would not pick pointless fights.
In that instance, what is meaningful? I have already said only the civil pressure insofar as there is such a society that substantially differs from street “Gavroches.” That pressure will help avoid two equally dangerous extremes – revolution and stagnation.
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ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
