Ashot Hakobyan, a member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), assessed the National Assembly election as non-election during a conversation with www.aravot.am, reasoning that the people had nothing to choose of. “Regardless of whether it is an election or any other choice, it requires an alternative. So, you should offer me a situation so that I can choose out of different kinds of things. If there is no alternative, I don’t have choice, if I make an example of the everyday life, it will be like I visit someone, I want to eat a soup, but I am offered bread and pilaf, what shall I choose, I want neither pilaf, nor bread, so I don’t have a choice, I am compelled to help myself to something, given the rules of hospitality. The same thing applies to the political stage, there was no essential difference between the political positions, the people understood quite well that they had no alternative,” Ashot Hakobyan says.
Our interlocutor draws attention to the fact that the candidates for majoritarian representation won more votes than the party, the ideology of which they adhere to. “The whole election showed that – all party members nominated for majoritarian representation won more votes than their parties, why was it so, the people didn’t vote for ideology, they voted for the personality, actually it should have been the other way around. However, it was quite the opposite with the oppositionists – oppositionists themselves won fewer votes than the ideology they adhered to, what does the electorate want to say by this? The data show that the people are tired of the face, the appearance of the so-called oppositionist, otherwise, there should have been absolutely different data.”
Mr. Hakobyan is convinced that these two indexes prove that the Armenian man was in an imposed position. “Admittedly, we can make a choice in an imposed position, but we can make a negative choice, since I vote not with the formula ‘I want,’ but I vote with the formula ‘how much I don’t want,’ I take a look which one I want the least, this one, then I don’t choose that, so, in this case, I choose the lesser of two evils. And the result of this choice is always evil, admittedly, I chose the lesser one, but it has the potential to grow,” the ARF figure says.
As Ashot Hakobyan figuratively put it, this time the Armenian people didn’t choose the lesser of two evils either, having a body injury, they didn’t allow anyone to bandage the wound or to change the bandage. “The people didn’t elect anyone, they just told to leave them alone, to let them suffer their pain, unless there was a force that they would trust. There is no such force on the political horizon right now, the Armenian man doesn’t see it. For example, the ARF says that it put forward a serious platform, yes, the ARF platform was different, but it wasn’t presented in the way that it would be comprehensible for the most ordinary Armenian citizen and not a series of promises, ‘I will do this, I will do that,’ it is not that, it should stem from my spirit, my essence, in order that I may listen and even intuitively realize that it is mine, this person speaks my language,” our interlocutor says.
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Nune AREVSHATYAN
