It is obvious to me that Nikol Pashinyan is behaving like a hooligan in this election campaign. I think the street vocabulary full of rude insults, slanders against the owners, intellectuals, clergymen, local government leaders, as well as threats of physical revenge are all visible. It is not a manifestation of a bad upbringing of one person, but an indicator of the degradation of the state. (The Human Rights Defender frequently calls attention to that, who seems to be the only official remaining in Armenia who is interested in the fate of the state).
I do not think that such behavior of a candidate for prime minister in a developed country would not result in a legal assessment. But in a civilized country, there would not be such a candidate; marginalized politicians are popular only among the relevant marginalized masses. Meanwhile, there are several hundred thousand people in Armenia who think in the categories of “insulting” and “building.”
But it is not that the behavior of the opposition is exemplary in that respect. I will single out three of the rejected tricks.
- Mentioning Ashot Pashinyan in the context of the pre-election struggle was inadmissible. It is generally unacceptable to enter into private life for political purposes, to write or say clumsy things about the leader’s wife (of course, we are also talking about the three former leaders). I may be a little emotional when it comes to children. Even in movies, when I see that, say, a thriller plot threatens children, I do not watch that movie anymore.
- In my opinion, presenting the fact of the Speaker of the National Assembly Ararat Mirzoyan cooperating with the NSS as a discrediting material is also not legal. Let’s say you work at a nuclear power plant and the NSS asks you to let them know if you notice anything suspicious. Will you reject that request? It is about the security of the country, isn’t it? This is not the Soviet era when KGB agents wrote fingerprints about who was telling “anti-Soviet” jokes. There is (so far) an independent Armenian state, and every citizen should take care of it.
- I do not accept the accusation of “traitor” against any leader of Armenia, including Pashinyan. The current acting Prime Minister is a very bad, catastrophically bad leader; people with such an unbalanced temperament should not be left in any state position at all. Moreover, the fate of Armenia and Artsakh should not be handed over to him; we saw what he did. But high treason is a specific criminal charge that no court has proven and will hardly prove. Were Zviad Gamsakhurdia or Abulfaz Elchibey traitors?
Therefore, by rejecting the government’s ‘hooligan agenda,’ we should not forget about part of the opposition’s doubtful arguments. I, for example, have not forgotten about them.
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Aram Abrahamyan
