Regardless of the future post-election developments, we can assert with a clear conscience that the number of votes won by Raffi Hovhannisyan in the latest presidential election were
a big success for Raffi Hovhannisyan and the Heritage Party. By the way, we mean the official results made public by the Central Election Commission (CEC).
The interesting thing is that even the most independent and the most oppositional sociologists didn’t predict that Raffi Hovhannisyan would win such a considerable number of votes in this presidential election. Under the conditions of so many political scientists, political technologists, and political sociologists, no one predicted a number of votes at least somewhat close to the one received by Raffi Hovhannisyan. Journalists and political commentators included. Moreover, everyone, first of all the mass media and journalists, would make a mockery of the hellos, which Raffi would give away and which were by no means secondary conditions of Raffi Hovhannisyan’s success. During the election campaign, Raffi Hovhannisyan probably shook hands with tens of thousands of people, and I have no doubt that almost everyone with whom he had shaken hands voted for him, because every citizen whom Raffi Hovhannisyan had shaken hands with dreamt absolutely humanly that the one who had shaken hands with him would become the President of Armenia. And it is quite possible that the number of voters who shook hands with Raffi Hovhannisyan during the election campaign was larger than those who voted for Bagratyan or Hayrikyan. And it is absolutely logical that Raffi’s supporters call the movement they initiated the Hello Revolution. Anyway, however intensively Raffi Hovhannisyan had said hello to voters, he wouldn’t, at least, physically have been able to say hello to more than thirty-five percent of voters. It means that there were other means in the arsenal of Raffi Hovhannisyan’s campaign technologies, which we should understand and examine. One couldn’t but notice that Raffi Hovhannisyan would radiate light and kindness during the whole election campaign. He made angry and intolerant speeches from time to time too, but he mainly was peaceful and tolerant. This was an absolute novelty for our society and our voters, because our oppositionists had stood out for their aggressiveness and intolerance since 1996, for the passion for splitting the people and voters into two hostile parts, the white and the black. Not only did Raffi Hovhannisyan not oppose the voters who had voted for him to those who hadn’t voted for him, but he also didn’t disseminate hostility toward his opponents; by the way, he talked about his main opponent with obvious respect from time to time too. And he expressed himself in almost the same way in the post-election period, while challenging the results of the election. Now I am writing all these things, but I am thinking at the same time that Raffi Hovhannisyan’s hellos and kindness were not political and campaign technologies, but rather Raffi Hovhannisyan’s human nature, and it is quite possible that our people have gotten tired of our political leaders’ aggressiveness and revengefulness and appreciate political leaders for their Christian values and merits. In a nutshell, the people who declared Christianity to be the state religion around 1700 years ago have eventually started to look for Christian traits and values among politicians. The next reason for Raffi Hovhannisyan’s success is that by not announcing their candidacies, opposition and the other alternative favorites willingly or unwillingly added a large part of their potential votes to Raffi Hovhannisyan’s votes. However, along with all this, the main reason for Raffi
Hovhannisyan’s success was the people’s discontent with the current government. The aforesaid doesn’t mean that everyone is pleased with Raffi Hovhannisyan. In the post-election period, in particular, when Raffi Hovhannisyan and his supporters continued their struggle and cherished hopes of victory, Raffi Hovhannisyan and his methods of struggle were criticized from all sides. Deeming Raffi Hovhannisyan a revolutionary, the government supporters and too cautious people would call for staying away from the Arabic and Syrian scenarios. On the contrary, the radicals and the revolutionaries deemed Raffi Hovhannisyan too kind and thought that he didn’t have a specific and serious plan of further action. Raffi Hovhannisyan couldn’t have had a specific plan of a post-election struggle, because I am almost convinced that the results of this election were a surprise not only for political scientists, politicians, journalists, and almost everyone, but also for Raffi himself and his Heritage Party.
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ARMEN SHEKOYAN
P.S. Raffi Hovhannisyan’s hunger strike turned everything upside down and made too specific. Nonetheless, it is hard even at this moment to predict anything specific. Now the government is expected to take a Christian approach and a Christian attitude.
