The election campaign has basically started and candidates have already, so to say, opened their bags of promises. When, for example, former Prime Minister Bagrat Asatryan talks about economic topics, it convinces me insofar as the economist promises that his political team will take these steps, if it wins a majority. It is a different issue whether they will take those steps or not, whether they are right or wrong. Anyway, he offered those steps not only in the pre-election period, because he is first of all a specialist and only then a politician and an oppositionist. The responses to his offers, as I understand it, don’t shine with professionalism and sound roughly as follows, “What about you who destroyed the country in 1990s?” (The only explanation was probably the response of the Minister of Economy yesterday.) There are specialists in different fields also in other political teams – they are engaged in practical conversations and are, so to say, “in their element” and let the voter judge how smart those offers are. I am certainly talking about those who haven’t lost their ability to think under the burden of social problems.
There are promises that are just a waste of breath. E.g., when an individual candidate or a “party list candidate” states, “We will do what we can so as people in this country are equal before the law,” I assure you he has basically not said anything. Such a propagandist either does “slapdash political work” – i.e. doesn’t bother himself with preparing for the election – or really has nothing to say. It is a different matter when a candidate for MP or a party offers to improve voters’ living conditions. Perhaps there is a thick notebook in every booth called “paper of credit,” which certainly testifies to people’s growing prosperity and the steps taken by the Cabinet in that direction. The election is a good opportunity to get rid of those papers. Certainly, one should state in advance that this generous gesture was made by well-doer So-and-so who always supports people. Both the residents and the booth owners will be happy. One should do the same thing with asphalt, roof, elevator, gas and electricity debts. An MP is exactly for repairing your leaky roof, isn’t he?
There are certainly projects that go beyond that. The owner of the Hrazdan fair, for example, has promised residents of the region of Shirak to breed ostriches in villages in case of his election. I can imagine how those African animals will run about and lay eggs in minus 15-20 degrees. However, the one who offers it is not an ordinary businessman, he is a many-year National Assembly MP and who knows, perhaps he will do. Breeding ostriches is a direct duty of MP, isn’t it?
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
