It is obvious already that there will be no television debate in any format between candidates for president. The argument of the majority of candidates is that they are ready to debate with Serzh Sargsyan; the latter, on the other hand, can avoid the debate by saying that he cannot single out one from the six candidates and debate with him. By the way, the incumbent president has convened no “classical” interview during his presidency; it also is a format in great demand.
When the mass media, NGOs or clubs offer two candidates to come to debate, besides the wish to debate with the president, they put forward another argument; who is he to debate with me, he is not a person of my caliber? Arrogance doesn’t suit anyone well, but as far as candidates for president are concerned, it becomes a double-edged sword; if you call your interlocutor, “Who is he?” it is very natural that your rival whom you have described like that during the election campaign will respond to you in the same spirit, “And who are you?” and there will be roughly the same conversation as between Panikovsky and Balaganov (“Go to Kiev and ask!”), but in absentia. Naturally, we, journalists, do everything we can so that one’s contemptuous, insulting word reaches the other, and so that this skirmish is always heated. And the candidates are not so shrewd or experienced to say in response to our minor provocations: “This is the opinion of my respected colleague, and all of us struggle for democracy, freedom of expression” etc.
However, since the mentioned shrewdness and experience are not there, although in absentia, it is a debate, but not on programs and ideas, it is a verbal skirmish over one’s own merits and former services to the fatherland, “Where were you when I…?” Such an argument has two negative consequences. Firstly, the six candidates, forgetting that their main target is the incumbent president – if it really is so – start to strike blows against each other, and as a result, one is under the impression that they really compete to come second or third. However, there is a long-term “cultural” consequence. The arrogant motto “Who is he?” doesn’t take into account a simple fact that in this world, there is no one man who is superior to another man in all respects, in every way. All of us can learn something from each other.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
