Who can be considered a politician and who cannot, how and thanks to whom one becomes or doesn’t become a politician is a difficult question. For example, all current candidates for president think of themselves as politicians, whereas those who create a cult of personality around their persons think that only their comrades-in-arms are such figures, and when the latter stop being such, they also stop being politicians. In the end, Paruyr Hayrikyan is convinced that he is the only politician in Armenia. In a nutshell, criteria are different and too subjective. Certainly, one can say in an elevated tone that the people, society, citizens are to decide. But we face once again the problem who can decide what that “people’s” attitude is. This or that party leader, seeing a group of fans or flatterers for money around him, attributes that group’s attitude to the whole people. There are mature and immature candidates for president who are honestly surprised when someone suggests that no one knows them in Armenia. Therefore, even if there are objective criteria, they are very difficult to find. My personal, certainly subjective, perception is that the majority of our citizens are deeply disappointed in all those who think of themselves as politicians, no matter what camp they “struggle for the nation” in.
Yesterday the OSCE observers asserted that there is a general atmosphere of disappointment and indifference. They made two very important emphases. Firstly, they were happy that those candidates who hadn’t announced their candidacies hadn’t urged citizens to boycott, because “participation in elections is one of the important merits of democracy.” Secondly, they stressed that “the current atmosphere of indifference and mistrust has nothing to do with the decision not to nominate a candidate for president.” I understand this in the following way; if you think of yourselves as political forces and politicians, certainly, it is your business, strategy and tactic to nominate or not to nominate a candidate. However, everyone – the government and the opposition, the political and non-political forces – is responsible for the atmosphere of disappointment, indifference, and mistrust of the electoral process. Don’t try to compromise elections as a democratic institution, only because you don’t participate in them. It will not have any impact on the observers’ assessment.
It is normal and even perhaps justified that some political forces have actually suspended their activities temporarily – I don’t know how else I can describe their current behavior. As anything else, politics in Armenia is in crisis, and society should rest from it a little. Perhaps the criteria of political activity will be clarified as a result of that.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
