Who won the election? To what extent it was rigged? Will Raffi Hovhannisyan “fight to the finish” or not? These questions are certainly very important. However, the question how our society, our people will get out of this electoral process – split, divided or, having natural internal differences, nonetheless, united. The answer to that question is directly connected with what mentality the candidates for president have, what ideology they adhere to. The government has been striking blows against our people, rigging elections since 1995. The events of October 27 and March 1 were serious challenges for our state. However, there are shocks in every people’s history; society undergoes a shock, but then it is able to straighten its back. The venom of divide leaves much deeper wounds, since it can even turn into a civil war, as it happened in, say, the Russian Empire or Spain in the 20th century, and by the way, Russian society hasn’t fully overcome the consequences of the confrontation between the Whites and the Reds, because it hasn’t heard the whole truth about that confrontation. In Armenia, we saw the most vivid manifestations of the ideology that splits the society, divides it into black and white in 1998 and 2008. In the first case, as a result of a coup d’état, the “well-known forces” that came to power basically stated: “What has happened before us was wrong, bad, and criminal, and we, the honest national forces, have come to fix everything and punish the criminals. And those who don’t agree with us dream of the former regime’s restoration.” The government was guided by that conception for 10 years, creating, along with that, such a regime, compared to which the “former criminal” one was rather “herbivorous.” However, that was not the worst thing; it was more terrible that all those who were not in the orbit of the “well-known forces” were declared “supporters of the Pan-Armenian National Movement (PANM),” “Levon’s supporters,” “Vano’s supporters,” revanchists, criminals, and enemies. In 2008, a force emerged that basically stated: “All that has happened in the past 10 years was bad, wrong, and criminal. We are coming to power to fix everything and punish the criminals. And those who don’t agree with us or venture to deviate from our phraseology by one millimeter are criminals or criminals’ stooges.” Thus, society was divided into “black” and “white,” “kind” and “evil,” “ours” and “enemies,” “whites” and “reds” for the second (or perhaps third or fourth) time. These wounds inflicted on society once in 10 years heal with difficulty; people, appearing on opposite sides of the
barricades, cannot forgive for the pain inflicted on each other, and if someone wants to open those wounds over the next cycle, he can easily carry out that mad wish. Is there anyone among the current 7 candidates for president who is guided by the desire to divide society and satisfy his ambitions by that? It seems there isn’t. And the next few days will show whether they will change their position.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
