Which one is more preferable for the residents of Gyumri that Vardan Ghukasyan continues to be the mayor or that this office is assumed by National Assembly member Martun Grigoryan’s protégé. A satisfying answer to that question was given to our newspaper by
Vahan Khachatryan, the owner of the Gyumri TV company GALA (https://www.aravot.am/2012/07/16/91241). Really, it absolutely doesn’t matter for ordinary residents of Gyumri which one of those two will assume the office. The leaders of two groups with criminal inclinations who, it seems, have even shed blood of each other will fight for that office, let’s hope without gunshots. What will change after that – will people living in shelters for 24 years get a house, will jobs be created for the unemployed or will the destructed roads beyond the town center be repaired?
At the end of the day, the fact that one gang has hidden itself behind the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) flag and the other behind the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) flag is a coincidence, because those groups have nothing to do with any ideology, any political program or any political party. The struggle is for law-enforcement, administrative and economic leverage, a struggle, in which the sides will stop at nothing. In the same manner, their parties could have been called “pear” and “apple.”
The scheme of the local elections to take place on September 9 will be roughly the same – in those places, where rivalry is expected. Imagine a village, where there is a traditional enmity lasting for decades between Dave’s and Mike’s families, who, as a rule, are the wealthiest in that community. The source of enmity is certainly domestic – for example, their ancestors couldn’t share some land or some herd of cattle. Dave has managed to get along with the government, which is called “RPA” at the moment and he is a member of it. What should Mike do? He would be afraid to join the Armenian National Congress (ANC) – it may make a bad ending. And it is very natural that he joins the PAP, in which there are wealthy people like him and in which there is no threat of losing everything, at least, at the moment. He joins the PAP, in order to play hell with Dave and in case of a success, to be able to have more fingers in more pies. Can we say that there is a political struggle going on between Dave and Mike?
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Carl von Clausewitz, a military theorist, noted at the beginning of the 19th century that “war is the continuation of policy by other means.” Changing that definition a bit, one can say that local elections in Armenia are the continuation of tough-guy showdowns by other means. Let us hope not violent.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
