A set of European foreign ministers that came to Armenia last week talked about the upcoming parliamentary election in this way or another and positively assessed the pre-election atmosphere created in our country. Generally the US Ambassador expressed his opinion in the same manner. Certainly, one can say that our establishment has managed to deceive them or that they are guided by the interests of their countries and want to “be deceived” – there is a grain of truth in those two claims. However, regardless of the level of our establishment’s cunningness, their commitment to hold a peaceful election without incidents is visible and probably the West points out that very thing. Certainly, those people that follow the internal political processes are not that naïve to believe that the election will be held without fraud (the “main weapon” here will probably be election bribe and tricks with voting lists). Let us also point out that “enema,” “pug dog,” “mooing cows,” “waste of the political stage” and other phrases like those are not voiced by the pro-government camp, which also has a positive impact on the overall atmosphere.
What benefits can we have from such a process, if it continues, thanks to the rationality of all political forces? First of all, it will offer many opportunities to Armenia in terms of European integration, which the guests that had come to our country directly talked about. It seems to me that after the meeting of the Euronest in Baku, the difference between our regime and the regime in the neighboring country became more obvious also for the Europeans and their attitude toward the two countries is unlikely to be on a par anymore. Therefore, holding a more or less normal election can be called without exaggeration a national security issue. The second factor is that reforms in a country like Armenia can be carried out only from above, according to the decisions made by the supreme leadership. It is a sad fact, but hoping that the establishment will leave as a result of shouting “Thieves, robbers, go away!” and will hand their offices over to the shouters is naïve. On the other hand, it is obvious that the establishment will make changes only under peaceful pressure of the society, if ideas really uniting the society, such as, for example, the release of prisoners of conscience, are put forward. The pressure from below should be along with external pressure. I assume that the establishment gives promises to the guests coming to Yerevan in that regard. It is a positive thing, regardless of what part of the promises is kept. Those two pressures should be within certain limits, in order that a chaos is not created in our country. As the saying goes, everything is good within reasonable limits.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
