The oppositional and governmental powers are doing their best to attract the constituency by all means, however each of those powers are acting as they can. The opposition is passive currently, however they promise to go out to the streets after the Christmas celebrations and stay there until they can change anything. One of the governmental powers has adopted a policy of attracting “the village intelligentsia” by distributing agriculture products and other materials to them. One of the leaders of another governmental power appears to be a “strong fighter” and “wise leader”, who sometimes seems to have an appearance of a neighborhood guy. We wander whether there will not be less violations during the upcoming elections than during the previous elections if the role of the constituency and votes are so important for them. “As you said, now especially the governmental powers are actively trying to attract the constituency. This means that during the upcoming elections the percentage of violations and fraud cannot affect on the outcome of elections since it is clear that there is no need to spend money to buy votes if you are able to violate almost 60% of votes” – thinks the head of the Caucasian journalists’ union, Alexander Iskandaryan, “The methods of the Republican and Prosperous Armenia parties are success for them”. What can they do by giving potato to people? May they have more votes? The percentage of such votes depends on how well and how professional those who are doing that job work. It is important to figure it out where it is better to distribute such goods to people and work with them. There are politicians that think their image is more important and work with voters to attract them and have a better image. These are methods such as signing public documents, appearing in public often, creating an image of a politician that thinks about people, etc. The goal of such methods is potential votes too. It depends on a right choice between the methods may be more effective for separate candidates. There are “exotic” images in Armenia too, but this is the other side of the coin”. What may the opposition benefit from its announcement that it is going to go out to the streets and stay there long? According to political scientist A. Iskandaryan, with this announcement the opposition wants to secure itself so that it can argue that the elections were violated if it is not given enough votes during the elections. “In difference with Armenia, where political powers are competing to get more votes, Russian political powers don’t care about votes generally; they are trying to be closer to Putin because before going Putin will make a decision on how the votes are going to be distributed. In Armenia it seems that either Kocharyan is not going to decide how the votes may be distributed or politicians are sure that the mentioned choice is not up to the president and he can’t do anything”.
Mr. Iskandaryan thinks that the outcomes of the upcoming parliamentary and presidential elections are predictable. The latter thinks that only 2-3 parties may be elected in the parliament (Republican, Prosperous Armenia parties and ARF). However, it is hard to say how many votes the Prosperous Armenia may collect. “This is a party that yet has to show its appearance in the political field. Also a small group of businessmen that are considered to be oppositionists (I think not more than 20 people) may enter the parliament”. It is not excluded that just before the elections new parties may be established (like the ULP and RL in the past) to drive forward, and if the Prosperous Armenia is not success during the elections, they may help it enter the parliament. “The political system in Armenia is clear; after the elections it will be again concentrated in a couple of parties. There will be one or two governmental parties, and one more party that is half-governmental and half-oppositional. As for the opposition, it will not be represented, just a couple of deputies will imitate that they are from the opposition, but the core opposition will not be represented. If the opposition unites, brings up a leader and creates a good image for him and also makes a good program what they can do after being elected, it may be given a huge number of votes. If this happens, the authorities will try to enter into a dialogue with them. In a word, there is an empty place for acting, but all what is called “opposition” does not tend to uniting, having a leader with a good image and doesn’t have the power to protect him”. However, the political scientist said that he might be mistaken and explained it by the following: “sometimes magic things may happen”. He thinks that the outcome of the presidential elections is more predictable. “Basing on the values of our inner politics I can say the name of the next president. Everyone can say that. There isn’t any counter power for him. The presidential elections will be organized in two years and if in this period something unprecedented doesn’t happen, if a stone doesn’t fall on someone’s head or something like that, the outcome is predictable. I think that in autumn the governmental powers will present a candidate advocated by all the governmental powers and there won’t be any counter power on his way to the president’s position (which shows that our political field is simply degraded). This candidate will move towards the president’s position as slightly as a knife in butter”.
