The political technologist advises oppositionists not to unite
Yesterday Raffi Hovhannisyan intimated that he had meetings with Hrant Bagratyan and Paruyr Hayrikyan to jointly discuss “the future of Armenia, in order that the Armenian people win their victory thanks to our joint efforts.”
Armen Badalyan, a political technologist, assured during a conversation with www.aravot.am today that their union was pointless. “If the incumbent president has 60 points on the 100-point grading scale, the others have 5 points each. If they unite, they will have 15 points. Although politics is not pure math, but if they have 15 points, the incumbent president has 60, who gets more? The incumbent president.”
We cleared up whether Serzh Sargsyan would win in any event, he said: “He will not win, rather he will become. One wins in an election; one becomes as a result of drawing.
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“Unity is impossible. Politicians unite in countries, where there are real elections. In Armenia, there are no real elections. It happens in the run-off and if the candidates take almost the same position, in order to unite electorates. It is not the case in Armenia. That is the very reason why even if there is a union, there will be a mechanical union, and a mechanical union doesn’t bring about the sum total of electorates. On the contrary. They may unite, and get fewer votes than each of them alone. For example, imagine the union of the Armenian National Congress (ANC) and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) around one candidate. The ARF longs for Armenia extending from one sea to another, and the Armenian National Congress doesn’t long for Armenia extending from one sea to another. If they put forward a joint candidate, neither the ANC electorate will vote for the joint candidate from the ARF, nor will the ARF electorate vote for the joint candidate of the ANC.
In response to our question whether he thought that Raffi Hovhannisyan and Hrant Bagratyan would not unite, because they were very different, the political technologist said: “They are not different, rather they don’t have electorates. That is the problem. When they have 2-3-point electorates, when you add 2 to 2…, even 5+5+5, you get 15; the other has 65.”
He assured that one couldn’t encourage the people to rise up by uniting either. “When the Armenian people see a crisis, a critical situation, they leave. You should understand one thing; you cannot deceive society. However much you say that the election is competitive, one can see what Bagratyan does, one can see what Raffi does; society is smarter than everyone. It doesn’t have a political scientist’s mind, but it sees instinctively whether this one is powerful or not. That is why the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) won so many votes during the parliamentary election. A part of society would go and vote for the PAP, even if they were not paid money, because they saw that the PAP was the force that could defeat this government. Today society doesn’t see those forces; that is why there was no fuss.”
Hripsime JEBEJYAN
