The position of the opposition on the issue of observers is not fully clear for me. Before elections, they and all of us seem to wish as many foreign observers as possible to come for the election, in order to prevent election fraud. After elections, a representative of the opposition, talking about observers that had come from different countries during a rally, shouted out “let them not come at all.” Let us make up our minds what is more important for us that the observers ensure the legality of the election or that they write a conclusion favorable for the opposition afterwards. I am under the impression that the first one is more realistic than the second one and the very proxies of the opposition reassert that the presence of foreigners in the polling stations plays a preventive role for the fraudsters representing the government. And it was pointless to expect a very strict, condemning report finding the election void – we have had much worse elections, on which the observers have written much better reports. Against the background of violence, gunshots, once even prolonging the election, as it went along, in all the previous elections, not accepting the results of the “peaceful fraud” would have been just unfair of the international community.
In any case, the appeal “Don’t come at all” should be perceived as an emotional outburst. On the contrary, participation of the international organizations in our elections should be expanded as much as possible. Since the main political forces in Armenia are represented in the 5th convocation of the National Assembly, they can agree on many things. In particular, it can agree on the issue that the upcoming presidential election is not supervised, but organized by the OSCE/ODIHR. For example, the heads of the election commissions at every level are from that very institution and members of the commissions are equally represented by the 6 parliamentary forces. The National Assembly can also adopt laws on making public the list of citizens who have voted, on mechanisms of checking and cleaning the voting lists, they can also make stricter the punishments for taking and giving election bribe, classifying it as a crime against the state.
However, the most important thing is to admit that we cannot hold a normal election yet – there are tens of thousands of people in Armenia who are ready to contribute to the government’s reproduction at any cost, there are also tens of thousands of people who basically don’t care for the outcomes of elections. It is not shameful to admit our inability to hold a normal election. We don’t adopt the institution of, for example, jury, do we? Why? Because the majority of “candidates for jury” will swear on the Bible to be honest and then break their promise.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
