The recent announcement of the deputy chief of the US mission in Armenia saying that the US Embassy is supporting different organizations to help organize democratic elections in Armenia has made “Siunyats Ashkarh” NGO representatives angry. The spokesman of the mentioned organization has said that Embassies don’t have a right to interfere in the processes in other countries.
They are true; the Americans should not interfere. Without any shame they say that they will support developing democracy in Armenia, organize free and fair parliamentary elections, i.e. they will do their best to make it sure that all the political powers are provided with equal rights to campaign, each citizen casts only one ballot into the ballot-box, electoral commissions don’t change the numbers after the vote counting process, etc. This is nonsense, nothing more… They don’t know the fact that when we had a theatre they didn’t even exist. Besides that, why do they worry about the way one of the northern nations is going to form its parliament? This is our country, we can give electoral bribe, or take back the bribes we have given before; it is our own business. Besides that, the “Siunyats Ashkarh” says that the elections are organized better now. They are true. The best example is the recent Constitutional referendum since there were no victims and the number of violated votes was minimum; it was just a half million.
There is a detail here that has not been discussed so far. The problem is the fact that the Constitutional referendum was organized due to Euro Union and the Venice Commission had clearly given instructions which points should be amended in the Constitution. Moreover, neither of the domestic NGOs, included the “Siunyats Ashkarh”, criticized EU in interfering in our affairs. Furthermore, neither of them managed to say anything when Ambassador John Evans “praised” the Constitutional referendum and spoke about the opposition. No one managed to tell him that “it is not his business and he’d better do his job instead of interfering”.
The Americans really don’t have a right to interfere in our affairs. Generally, neither of the other countries has that right. Why didn’t they speak about it when Armenia was receiving the “Millennium Challenges” program support and was taking the responsibility to develop democracy in the country and make reformations? Why didn’t they claim that the mentioned program was an attempt to interfere in our affairs? Is it because they paid in cash? If we have agreed to organized free and fair elections for that cash money, we have to also allow them monitor that process to make it sure that the elections are really democratic. Otherwise, it does not look well since we have taken money from the Americans to develop democracy in our country and tell them that it does not concern them whether we are democratic or not.
One more thing: I don’t think that there is any non-governmental organization that has complained of Russia so far and claimed that the length of the Iran-Armenia gas pipeline is managed by the Russians in spite of the fact that it is a very important strategic issue. Furthermore, this pressure has gone so far that Armenia does not want any more to import gas through its ready pipeline even if it is much profitable.
Now let’s try to discuss the issue another way. Now let’s imagine that the authorities are going to use all their resources and tools to organize democratic elections. Now please also imagine that in parallel with it the US Embassy informs that it wants to support them to organize democratic elections. It is clear that in such case people would not complain and would only thank them for their help.
The conclusion is the following: only those powers can complain of the possible activation of the foreigners during the elections that are sure that the elections are not going to be democratic and are afraid that it may affect their reputation. Certainly, they have reasons to worry about; however, they should not struggle against the activation of the foreigners, but in favor of free and democratic elections. It is where the interests of the Armenian state and the international institutions coincide.