Representatives of four political forces would claim with one voice in interviews given to me, as well as my colleagues, that this time the Republican Party would not be able to commit fraud at polling places. That conviction was based on the fact that the above-mentioned 4 parties had poll-watchers, members of commissions, “journalists” and “observers” defending their interests at all 464 polling places and each one of them will be all eyes and ears during the voting, as well as the tallying of votes. According to the preliminary official results, the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) won in the overwhelming majority of 464 polling places – the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) won in 20 – and during the voting and the counting, there were not many serious incidents.
There can be 3 explanations to that: 1. the RPA was not engaged in fraud at polling places; 2. there are several hundred “employees” in the RPA who can compete with Harutyun Hakobyan in tricks, i.e. they can unnoticeably pull out aces out of their sleeves in front of 20-30 people’s eyes; 3. the eyes of those observers were not so reliable, and they “winked” under the influence of money or fear. I personally don’t rule out the first two options and am inclined to accept the third one. However, I may be wrong; the interested persons, first of all the representatives of the above-mentioned 4 parties, should think about the options more. Nonetheless, I haven’t heard or read such reflection, analysis, perhaps even self-criticism yet.
Generally, I cannot recall an instance in the past 25 years when any political force would say that it had made such and such promise or prediction, but for certain reasons, its promise or prediction hadn’t proved to be right. Certainly, the government, in its turn, is not honest with society. For example, now they claim that Taron Margaryan has been such a wonderful mayor that citizens turned out and heartily voted for him. People are sometimes inclined to believe the lies they utter themselves.
However, a strong rival can be defeated only by someone who is smart and organized. Can we say such a thing about the current opposition parties? Their whole analysis is based on the hackneyed statements about the “regime” and the “Establishment,” for all their being basically true. At this moment when the electoral cycle has finished, I think that the oppositionists should answer the following questions as honestly as they can: what were you expecting from the parliamentary, presidential and city council elections, what were you pinning hopes on, and why were your expectations not met? Without answers to those questions, there will be the same thing in 2017 and 2018.
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Aram Abrahamyan
