On the “road” towards analyzing the invented methods of campaign applied by the current political powers of Armenia, our “train” stopped at the United Labor Party (ULP) “station”. At the portal of the “station”, we see the campaign poster with the picture of political party leader Gurgen Arsenyan dressed in a pink shirt and the slogan in golden letters (as the author of the article): “THE PRESIDENT MENTIONED OUR NAME TOO”.
The political party founded in 2002 reached its peak by defending Robert Kocharyan during the 2003 presidential elections and had a faction in the National Assembly as a result of the National Assembly elections of the same year. Generally, the political party representatives and Gurgen Arsenyan always praise the fact that they were able to make their business/plan a reality in 2003 and win in the elections. It is worth mentioning that the ULP pre-electoral campaign in 2003 was rather well-prepared and differed from the campaigns of the rest of the political parties of Armenia. People who had had rather huge successes in different fields were busy with the ULP campaign. It is necessary to ask the ULP why they forgot to place emphasis on this campaign later on in their speeches and emphasized the business/plan campaign instead. On the other hand, we may suppose that by saying business/plan, perhaps the political party representatives mean the correct calculations and the fact that they have a real goal to accomplish. However, it all opens up later.
The participation and loss of the ULP in the local government elections later on (for example in the Arabkir district elections of Yerevan) proved that the plan that they were so proud of was not that effective because the party was already setting difficult and unreachable goals.
The ULP’s consequent activities can be characterized as the party’s pro-president approach and all the consequences. Before leaving the “Orinats Yerkir” (Country of Law) coalition, the ULP had a rather amorphous status with its 6 National Assembly deputies in the sense that it was neither the opposition, nor the authorities. G. Arsenyan frequently made speeches criticizing the coalitional government of Armenia, mentioning that the ULP is not the opposition and supports the president’s plan. The party forgot that that plan was the basis of the government’s activities and the factual head of Armenia’s executive branch was the President before the constitutional amendments. This form of conduct led up to the point where the ULP party was not mentioned in any rating surveys conducted by Armenian and international organizations. However, this has never preoccupied and currently does not worry leader of ULP Gurgen Arsenyan, who likes to make big announcements and is even ready to give what the others want (reference made to G. Arsenyan’s press conference). But in reality, it is different and after that conference, Armenian Republican faction secretary Gagik Melikyan evaluated Arsenyan’s abovementioned announcement:
“We don’t want anything from people who have nothing”.
In general, the analysis of this political party that has been around for five years (like in the case of numerous liberal political parties of Armenia) is that we are dealing with a non-liberal leader. The people who have at least once seen what the ULP faction does in the National Assembly may say that Gurgen Arsenyan’s announcements about liberalism, the faction members’ attitude towards the party leader and the joy that the latter feels are completely the opposite. As far as the political parties in the National Assembly go, the faction members are known for their eccentric behavior and strive to differ from the rest. It is worth mentioning that during 2003-2007, leader of ULP G. Arsenyan has been able to reach his goal and his party currently differs from the rest of the political parties that exist in the political field. The reader may ask: how? There is only one answer: the party is unprincipled. Although nowadays many mention that their only principle is to be unprincipled, however the traditional Armenian society still hasn’t reached the “level of development” in order for it to perceive this expression. The only impression we get from the activities of the ULP is that they are trying to keep the status quo and not go against the president. In order for Arsenyan or another ULP representative not to accuse us of baseless characterizations, I will make references to a couple of examples of the activities of the ULP at the National Assembly in 2003-2006.
As you may recall, the ULP has almost always come up with its own examples during the legislation hearings. As proof of that, let’s mention the National Assembly regulatory law and the process of the constitutional amendments. In these two processes, as we mentioned, the ULP has had its own version and has discussed the versions presented by the coalition (it had reached the level of researching the rules of Armenian language during the constitutional amendments discussions). As time progressed, we saw that the ULP voted in favor of the versions proposed by the coalition. You may also remember when G. Arsenyan declared a cold war on the coalition. After a short while, Arsenyan announced that the ideological opponent of ULP is the ARF, while the Armenian Republican Party was the administrative opponent. After this announcement, who would have thought that the ULP would enter the coalition with the Republican Party and the ARF in a matter of months?
The activities of the ULP are becoming absurd as we get closer to the upcoming elections. The ULP is not voting for its minister’s legislation (the law on “The National Anthem of Armenia”). The law on “Dual Citizenship” was being discussed during the last out-of-turn National Assembly session. The ULP also differed from the rest of the political parties with its position and manner of working in this discussion too. There was one difference: by being against the bill, the opposition did not participate in the vote, while being a member of the coalition, the ULP criticized the bill and voted in favor; knowing very well that voting against will not create obstacles for the approval of the bill, but rather will help provide the quorum. Besides that, after criticizing that much during the period between the first and second reading, the ULP faction still didn’t come up with a written proposal. As it was stated in some presses, only the Armenian Republican faction made proposals that only had some reserves connected with the law.
After such an “impetuous” activity, G. Arsenyan is of the opinion that the society must believe in his announcement that the ULP takes on the responsibility of conducting free, fair and transparent National Assembly elections in 2007. One thing is for sure: the ULP was able to successfully substitute “Country of Law” in the coalition by continuing the strategy adopted by the latter, which is a lot of talking and less work. However, it is worth mentioning once again that May 12 is coming up and there is not going to be a lack of big promises and criticism of the authorities. So, it would be better if the ULP thought about a nice, civilized version of a campaign just like the one in 2003 that, according to me, would be rather effective, instead of the already cheap, populist pre-electoral campaigns.