I know that my depoliticized desire will be much politicized, but I will say that one should not hold elections in Armenia very often. Because it turns into a life-and-death struggle, occupies citizens’ minds too much and most importantly, needlessly antagonizes people. I for one would like Vahagn Khachatryan to be the mayor of Yerevan, and if I was a resident of Yerevan, I would vote for the Armenian National Congress (ANC) list. However, nothing terrible will happen, if Taron remains or Oskanian or one of two Armens becomes. Is it such a crucial issue that our estimable party members have become so malicious and venomous? By the way, everyone against everyone, regardless of whether he is from the “regime” or not, whether he is a colleague or not.
The most important thing that party figures can do, instead of wrangling, is to increase the level of society’s trust in elections. In that sense, I like the idea of the PAP to install a camera in each of 464 polling places in Yerevan. If it is not technically possible today, it would be great, if at least in 2017, everyone in Armenia or around the world who had a computer and internet connection was able to watch online what was going on in polling places from the moment of opening till recording of the last ballot, in order that the talk about distorting the vote was ruled out at least by 70 percent. Certainly, it is only about the voting, which is only a part of elections.
Fortunately, I have heard from both political scientists and some smart party members that one should prepare for the election itself, not the post-election processes and not pin hopes on the latter. However, unfortunately, the most part of the campaign is directed at post-election processes – justification and grounds for rallies and protests.
As a consequence, there are implicit and explicit promises to destroy each other. Whereas I have found out recently that the contradictions between Armenia’s government and opposition are exaggerated. For example, both claim that there are no oligarchs in Armenia; there are big businessmen who have earned their wealth by the sweat of their brow, thanks to their intelligence and talent. Well, almost like Bill Gates or Steve Jobs. And our big businessmen naturally dream about paying taxes, not paying “protection” to the corrupted powers that be and being engaged in pre-election charity, but paying roughly 10-20 times more money to the treasury. However, someone prevents that dream from coming true. Most probably, journalists.
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ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
