As we had predicted yesterday in our edition, the number of votes for “yes” exceeded 1,410,000; to be more exact-1,411,791 voters “cast their votes” for the constitutional amendments. In general, according to the data given by the Central Electoral Committee (CEC), more than 1.5 million citizens took part in the referendum. If we consider this as the truth, then we can only conclude the following: during the past two years, the number of people that love Robert Kocharyan has doubled. It is interesting to know about how the money exchange rates are going based on that “love and trust”. The exchange rate of one dollar was 466 drams on November 22 and then the exchange rat started to go down step by step. One could exchange a dollar for 460 drams on referendum day. Yesterday morning it was 458 and 453 in the evening. It is quite possible that the people’s “faith” for a brighter future, which is reflected by the authorities and the constitutional amendments referendum passed by 90%, has moved on to the national level. Generally, in normal countries where the tendencies in exchange rates are looked at through the economic perspective, the national value is usually devaluated during the ups and downs of the internal political situation. If we try to explain that in our terms, the only thing that we can say is that the people are simply getting ready to celebrate the New Year and the dollars foreseen to spend for the celebration are slowly becoming drams. The opposition is also busy with calculations (literally and metaphorically) and is not thinking about the necessary items to be bought for celebrating New Years’. There were ten to twelve thousand people participating in the opposition meeting held yesterday. This number is pretty impressive if we take into consideration the blockade of information (in particular television). The oppositionists hope that the number of participants will double during the meeting held today at 4:00 p.m. As a matter of fact, it turns out that composer Ohan Duryan also likes to make calculations. By encouraging the people to bring a few people along to the meeting, he added jokingly “I will count everyone present”. There was another concert in Freedom Square yesterday. There were approximately 20-25 people and some officers. These are the calculations and the officers that are music lovers.
