The report made by the PACE Bureau Temporary Committee last week on the parliamentary election held in Armenia was rather strict and didn’t include any encouraging “advances” to our government. Naturally, it is the common position of the Europeans not only on Armenia, but also generally on countries like ours not to make assessments like “free,” “unfree,” “fair,” “unfair,” but to represent all drawbacks, which the observers have noticed or which the opposition has alerted to. It is much probable that neither the government, nor the opposition will like that report. The latter would probably like the European institutions to state that they don’t accept the results of the election. And the government would like those reports to reflect more explicitly the progress that was really noticeable as compared to the previous parliamentary, not to mention presidential elections. However, I think that this position of the Europeans is useful for our state, nonetheless, since it makes all political forces focus on two important problems: a. voting lists and b. pressure on voters. Those two very points are mentioned in the report of the PACE Bureau Temporary Committee as essential ones.
The ways of solving the first problem are comprehensible, at the end of the day, it is also the reason why so many smart figures interested in fair elections are gathered in this convocation of the National Assembly, in order to jointly think and devise mechanisms for efficiently cleaning the lists. I don’t think that the government, in this case the police, will not fulfill the wishes of opposition and not so opposition MPs.
As for the pressure, frankly speaking, I don’t know what can be done here, if there is no political will. Because the phenomenon “pressure” itself is not clear. If guess a supervising teacher urges to vote for the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) at the parents’ meeting; it is unequivocally pressure, because children and consequently, also the parents are dependent on the supervising teacher. Generally, heads of governmental organizations, as well as in many cases owners of private companies, are dependent on law-enforcement, tax, customs offices and other similar institutions and in this case, it is impossible to distinguish which one is explicit pressure, which one is friendly advice and which one is just overlapping of business interests. And when the opposition says that he who is not with us is a rogue, he who doesn’t demand the president’s immediate resignation and snap elections is sold out to the government, if you don’t join me, I will destroy you, can it be considered as pressure?
By the way, what has come out of the issues of immediate resignation, impeachment and snap elections? Is it still a test for “not being sold out”? Or one can still wait for another 9 months.
Read also
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
