The developments after the presidential election slowly, but surely turn into a Yerevan City Council election campaign. It is natural; in every normal country processes related to elections and referendums should take place all the time. In particular, the local elections will continue in different communities, and they shouldn’t be underestimated, since the election fraud is mainly committed by the officials of village administrations, town administrations, as well as administrative districts of Yerevan. By the way, it is absolutely realistic that we will have a referendum on constitutional amendments within 1 or 2 years, if, certainly, the opposition forces show certain shrewdness.
Levon Zurabyan, the Armenian National Congress (ANC) coordinator, has made an absolutely constructive offer to 4 parties – the ANC, which will most probably manage to become a party, the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP), the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), and the Heritage Party – to jointly participate in the Yerevan City Council election. In this regard, the situation is really favorable for a few reasons. 1. Those parties can appoint reliable members of commissions and poll-watchers in all polling places of Yerevan; there is no problem of going to remote villages and supervising there. 2. Two of the four parties basically have TV channels, which the government doesn’t restrict very much, as far as I can tell. The other TV channels, the Public Television, in particular, are not engaged in propaganda against the opposition in the same way as they did in 2008. 3. In terms of freedom of rallies and generally opposition activities, the current situation in Armenia is incomparable with the previous electoral cycles. I know that respectful oppositionists will not share my opinion on this issue, but let me just assert that I haven’t come across news that participants in opposition rallies were taken to the police station for a “talk,” or administrative detention was used against them, which was quite common in 2003-2004. 4. The internet, websites, social networks have become effective means of propaganda and are not controlled by the government in any way, and in Yerevan, those are absolutely available.
Taking all this into account, one can assert that the idea of Levon Zurabyan, a member of the National Assembly, is doable, also because this is about governing the capital, and merely ideological contradictions between parties are pushed to the sidelines here. If the idea is not realized, surely not the government will be to blame.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
