The events continuously repeating and now continuing in internal political life make us and political forces, in particular, completely reconsider the Election Code of the Republic of Armenia and make fundamental changes in it. This is the most urgent issue, because the result of every election that takes place in Armenia these days is doubted by not only political forces, but also voters and citizens. Election bribes and electoral fraud have been much talked about recently, and even “winners” don’t deny the existence and presence of election bribes and electoral fraud, and it gradually becomes more and more clear that however many elevated and passionate speeches we make on that subject, neither electoral corruption nor electoral fraud will be reduced as a result of that. Therefore, no one will believe the results of elections that will take place from now on, the “losers,” in particular; by “losers,” I mean first of all voters, because even as a result of rigged and not free elections, there nonetheless are “winners.” And regardless of whether we put the word “winners” in quotes or not, winners in rigged and not free elections obviously benefit, becoming president, mayor, MP and member of the city council. And sometimes some oppositionists benefit from rigged and faulty elections, becoming MP or member of the city council and in case of success, penetrating into the ruling coalition or declaring themselves an alternative. Therefore, mainly the people, I should say the main part of the people, as well as some oppositionists who don’t gain anything from rigged and not free elections and don’t engage in bargaining with the government (or don’t have a possibility to engage in bargaining with the government) are the losers in unfair elections. Nevertheless, the main demander of reforms in the Election Code should be radical opposition MPs, not only because they are offered a good opportunity to organize serious discussions and make speeches on this issue in the National Assembly, but also because they will most probably not appear in the National Assembly and will not have seats, unless the current Election Code of the Republic of Armenia is fundamentally reformed. Now is the best moment to reform the current Election Code to the best advantage, if, certainly, all parties realize quite well the seriousness of the moment. Life has shown and continues to show that losing power, the governments of Armenia quickly become opposition, and becoming opposition, they quickly realize the faultiness of the Election Code. The first President of the Republic of Armenia has been opposition for a long time, and the second president is almost an alternative already. Sooner or later, the third president will suffer the same fate. In my opinion, this is not just a manifestation of the desire for power, but an absolutely human wish to fix the mistakes made in the past. As opposed to the first two, the third president has good possibilities to reform the Election Code, in order that he doesn’t also face the inconveniences of the current Election Code in the future. Nonetheless, society, i.e. voters, should first of all be interested in reforming the Election Code, because, as I have already said, as a result of rigged elections, voters are deceived more than anyone else; I mean everyone, including the elected, the rich and the poor, the intellectuals and the journalists, whose votes have been lost. The fact of the matter is that no matter how rigged elections are, life continues and even changes creating new conditions for voters and everyone else, and the provisions of the Election Code should also be adapted to the changed conditions, regardless of this or that political force’s interests. I am talking about the day of silence before elections, in particular. As recently as a few years ago, there really was silence on the day before the election, and similarly there was campaign silence on the election day in the press and on TV channels. Now the situation is rather different, because information websites have obviously surpassed the print information agencies with their “circulations” and surpass even television in terms of information and urgency. On the day of the latest presidential election and on the previous day, we saw and realized that information websites cannot manage to keep silent on the “day of silence.” Admittedly, information websites, following the provisions of law, abstained from propaganda on both days of silence; however, silence was not kept on information websites, because campaign material from the previous days is not erased from websites and continues to make noise and cry next to “silent” information and editions of the day of silence, and we become convinced that the given information website has sacredly followed the requirements of the “day of silence” only after carefully examining the dates of the vigorous campaign and “silent” publications. Thus, the “days of silent” are basically formal on information websites, particularly given the fact that the visitors of those websites prefer to view and review the vigorous campaign publications of previous days on the websites. But it is beyond doubt that the journalists should also be active in this and other reforms in the Election Code.
VOSKAN YEREVANTSI
