The Parliamentary elections electoral system (proportional or majoritarian) in Armenia is the test by which it is possible to distinguish the government from the opposition. The government is constantly struggling against a 100-percent proportional election system, claiming that the public and the parties have not yet matured to the point that the elections be solely proportional, that in this case, participation of our citizens living outside Yerevan in political life would be limited, and that the politician is not necessarily be a party soldier.
Pertaining to this, the opposition is saying that the majoritarian seats are in the pocket of the authorities, that the local oligarch is able to acquire mandate by its leverages and bribes, that it thereby acquires a greater interest in committing the same violations for the sake of its ruling party.
The dispute takes exactly 20 years, since the time when the independent Armenia was getting to its first parliamentary elections in the history. Before it, the 100-percent proportional elections of non-independent Soviet Armenia’s Supreme Council were held free and fair, without election bribes and without fraud and beatings, and afterwards, it failed to repeat this achievement.
The fact that the “majority-proportional” matter is a litmus paper for being a government-opposition is shown by the event that the same figures and parties, when in power, are fighting against proportional, and when moved to the opposition, they become strong advocates of the proportional. This can be particularly said about the first and second presidents and the political forces united around them.
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Actually, the problem, I think, is fictitious. Although the arguments constantly brought up by the government and the opposition contain a rational grain, however, the most urgent problem of the Parliament is definitely not the 41 seats that are occupied by the “majoritarian” deputies. In fact, today, the successful MP Edmon Marukyan is one of them, who would hardly pass to the National Assembly by any list. Armenia’s problem is the fair elections, and this problem is not associated with the “majoritarian-proportional” system.
Russia’s State Duma’s elections are 100-percent proportional. The State Duma is 100 percent in Vladimir Putin’s pocket.
ARAM ABRAHAMYAN
