The closer is the day of parliamentary elections, the more it is complicated for the Armenian voter to decide about whom to vote. Usually, the candidates running for a member of the parliament are selected by their differences but this time the opportunities of the electorates are limited because most of the elected are too similar to each other with their pledges and ideas, unless, of course, they exist. While the similarities are too many. Especially, the similarities in the alliances. At least the fact that our alliances and parties submitted their tasks and lists to the Central Election Commission at the last moment, on 16 February, already says a lot.
There are many other similarities too, especially extremely shocking similarities. One of the most shocking of them is that some campaign alliances and political parties are departed from their perhaps best representatives too easily. For instance, at the last moment, one of the most prominent members of Ohanyan-Raffi-Oskanian alliance, Vahe Hovhannisyan announced all of a sudden that he would not participate in the parliamentary elections.
Hovhannisyan tried to substantiate his decision not to participate but the original reason remained unknown. “Heritage” will participate in the elections without its prominent representative Zaruhi Postanjyan who also announced that she would not participate in the National Assembly elections. I could also address Anahit Bakhshyan and Styopa Safaryan who are going to participate in the NA elections not by the “Heritage” but by “Free Democrats” lists but my intention is to address our politicians who would have conveyed meaning and breath to the new National Assembly but unfortunately, they will not participate in the elections.
I would not like to be focused on Ohanyan-Raffi-Oskanian alliance, but my next example also refers to this alliance. When the foundations of this alliance were just laid, and the “Heritage” was missing from this alliance, and former lawmaker and political prisoner Azat Arshakyan was regularly coming up with convincing speeches in favor of the leader of the alliance Seyran Ohanyan, and people having some notion about politics were assuming that Arshakyan will be in the top ten on the list of this alliance.
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But the list was published and Arshakyan was completely missing in the list and despite Arshakyan had previously announced that he will not be on the list of the alliance and will not run for the elections. Nevertheless, his not being on the list of the alliance was a surprise for us so as the absence of Yervand Bozoyan’s name on the list was a surprise for us. Earlier, former Ombudsman Karen Andreasyan also left the alliance. I also think that I focused too much on the Ohanyan-Raffi-Oskanian alliance but I could not but talk about the people whose presence in the National Assembly was more than desired but who will not be in the new National Assembly.
Unfortunately, there are too many of such people. Whether we like them, or not, love them, or not, they are our liked and disliked politicians, and surprisingly, they are not on the lists of the campaign of the alliances. Whether we like Ashot Manucharyan or not, he should have been involved in any passing list of our campaign alliances. The same applies to Aram Karapetyan. The same applies to Petros Makeyan. The same applies to Alexander Arzumanyan. The same applies to David Shahnazaryan and Gurgen Yeghiazaryan, Tevan Poghosyan and Hmayak Hovhannisyan, Avetik Ishkhanyan and Vardan Harutyunyan, Artur Sakunts and Levon Barseghyan and many others who no matter whether they will be elected or not, anyway, will be engaged in the policies, and if elected, their only task at the National Assembly will not be pushing the button. Naming the withdrawal of the candidates and many others from the politics a political change in generation is simply a demagogy because all of this is not a change in generation but simply a political muddling, especially since it is not clear at all whether the mentions “elderly” will be substituted by young people or by just unrelated and “rabiz” elderly.
Voskan YEREVANTSI
P.S. An idea came to my mind just now: if we compile a list of the deserved and comparatively deserved 100 people left out of these elections called games, so whether it will be much more successful than the list of the National Assembly elected deputies, which we will have after April 2.
