Political scientists make their assessments of the presidential election during a conversation with www.aravot.am. Political scientist Hrant Melik-Shahnazaryan has already performed his civic duty. He said during a conversation with us: “I think that the main violations are as
yet technical. They alert to the directed crowds of people.” In Mr. Melik-Shahnazaryan’s opinion, the mass media try to find a sensation; therefore the picture “is not that objective.” Talking about the features and regularities of this election, the political scientist stated: “I don’t see any special features. The issue of ink has been raised again; this time people would just erase it, damaging passports. It is illegal. I cannot deny that the election campaign was well-organized. Let’s hope that the sentiment during the election will be the same.” Ruben Mehrabyan, an expert of the Center for Political and International Studies, has voted too. He thought it was worrying that there was a flow of information into the mass media about different kinds of alerts and violations. Then he made a comment: “The government says that there may be people who will do a disservice. We can notice that we can’t get rid of disservices. The time will tell in whose interest they are. Everything will get a logical solution. We can at least notice that not everything is good. Let us assert that the government doesn’t walk its talk.” In Mr. Mehrabyan’s opinion, one should consider whether the election is legitimate or not, whether it is people’s choice or someone else’s, whether it is a real election or an imitation of election. Talking about the work of monitoring missions, Mr. Mehrabyan noted: “Have you noticed that no reprimand or resentment has been expressed by the observers from the CIS, as during other elections in all of the CIS? Like parasites, they have come to another place, Armenia, to have fun. And Armenia makes a choice after elections. In the end, time is ripe to get rid of this trash. Disservices are many, other vicious phenomena are many too, and people who do them ought not to govern people.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
