Since 1995 everything related to elections in Armenia has surprisingly repeated itself. In particular, there are false ideas, which the oppositionists and a part of the society believe in – one of such ideas is the consolidation of the opposition and putting forward a common candidate.
In reality, it is a trap, in which oppositionists are regularly caught and the government representatives, certainly, contribute to that with great pleasure. The opinions expressed by them are the following, “We are strong; we are powerful” (as if it is not clear that it is so only thanks to money and administrative leverage), “but it would be better, if the opposition was also strong, because the opposition is the treasure of the country” (this is a classic example of pharisaism), “and for that, weak opposition groups should unite, in order that they are able to become a factor.” And after elections, the government says, as a rule, “we warned them, but the opposition did not unite, that is why it has lost.” The exception probably was 1996, when Vazgen Manukyan was able to accumulate the whole hatred of the opposition mass toward the first president, but it didn’t yield results, because in politics hatred, as well as love, is a temporary feeling.
Therefore, now there will be a few candidates of the opposition, one of which will state that he is the common candidate and the rest are just puppets and clients. However, it is not the issue here – the search for a common candidate and arguments over that are a substantial and methodological mistake. Today there is no need for either an opposition or a common candidate. Today one needs a political force and a candidate that has positive things to say and those positive things should really be acceptable for the society. We know all about emigration, oligarchs, bodyguards, corruption, as well as dependent legal system, therefore, stirring up another wave of hatred and malice will not yield any results.
In 1988-90, the Karabakh committee won not because there were common opposition candidates, but because they expressed the idea uniting the society at the time, they not just said that the Communists were the evil and should leave as soon as possible. They presented what country we should live in. Certainly, one cannot claim that we live in that country today – a vision and the reality always differ from each other, but it is important that we believed in it at the time.
Read also
Today under the circumstances of the lack of a uniting vision, the issue of common or uncommon opposition candidate is severely anachronistic.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
