Before the election, multifold civic initiatives have emerged to oversee the election. Such initiatives are The Election’s Mailman; the 2012 Parliamentary Election and Art and Culture projects. In the framework of the first one, 7 mailmen have been sent on a business trip to various regions of the Republic of Armenia to find out what problems concern the population. Sona Ayvazyan, the director of The Election’s Mailman; the 2012 Parliamentary Election project, stated during a conversation with www.aravot.am that problems were mainly of social nature, “Problems of social nature are so many that problems of democracy and human rights are not so relevant, as problems with daily bread.” We inquired whether it was possible to have a fair election in such an atmosphere. Our interlocutor said, “It is possible, but political will is needed for that. We see the lack of political will in overusing the administrative resource; there are just political promises, formal statements.” www.aravot.am inquired during a conversation with Hovhannes Margaryan representing Art and Culture project how he would assess the partisanship of cultural workers or their inclusion in a certain party’s list for proportional representation. He clarified, “Not everyone, but respective art workers.” Then he proceeded, “If the art worker does his work politically, it contributes to the political society’s maturing. But I am not for partisanship.” Tumanyan readings will be organized in the framework of the project, which will have nothing to do with Tumanyan, but during those, discussions on election bribery and other negative phenomena will take place.
H. Margaryan stated at the end of the conversation, “We don’t create an artwork, we want to say that the establishment creates an artwork in the form of this election. It is an artwork in the sense that it is an unreal election. We say that if we consider what the establishment does as an artwork, it will be good, but it is a misfortune as a reality.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
