International monitors are thus far satisfied with the pre-election situation in Armenia. They state that they are not interested in the results of the elections. They are more interested in the pre-election process and are satisfied that the opposition is provided with sufficient airtime. In fact, the international monitors have all the grounds to be satisfied and happy. Besides a few gunshots, party office arsons, and explosions, the environment is calm overall. The 24 parties tell us for 2 minutes a day about their great plans to make us happy.
But today’s topic is not campaigning. One of those parties offers to eliminate taxes and customs fees; another one offers promises to reestablish the Soviet Union; the third one promises to build new cities. God bless them! The problem is that this time it seems the government has found the methods of their reproduction “in the framework of the law”. The first necessary tool for that was to ensure that the opposition never gets united. Thus the opposition didn’t unite, and the hazard of change of government is neutralized. The second tool was to make sure that the opposition parties formally show up on the TV screens, but meanwhile make those appearances ineffective. They did this as well. It’s hard for parties to express within 2 minutes what their plans are, but the government doesn’t care about that. Thus the government doesn’t have much left to do. All they have left to do is make sure people don’t get beaten up very much on voting day near the precincts. Under those circumstances the international monitors will announce that these elections compared to previous ones were a step forward.
Does this mean that the government succeeded in deceiving the international organizations? Of course not. They understand everything perfectly. But they won’t make much noise, even if they find out, on the day after the elections, that 80% of the people dissatisfied with the incumbent government “voted” for the same government. They won’t make noise not because everything formally looked all right, but because Armenian FM Vartan Oskanyan had already made his magic statement. He said that the countries have never been so close to the resolution of the Karabakh conflict. Moreover, he mentioned that the recommendations are on behalf of both sides. Let’s note that the phrase, “the sides have never been so close…” cannot have been truthful because Mr. Oskanyan knows perfectly well that in 1997 the mediators made official recommendations, which were acceptable for both Armenia and Azerbaijan. But this is not essential any more. There can be no doubt that the “message” will reach the right address.
Only one question is interesting. When claiming that the incumbent government has found ways of resolution we’d like to know which other party principles that recommendation contradicts. The thing is that the Dashnaks and the RPA are stating that they are not going to concede anything, and their main goal is to build a powerful state on the basis of the status quo (let the representatives of those parties correct me if I’m wrong). Of course, once Serge Sargsyan, in his status as Defense Minister, announced that Aghdam has never been part of our fatherland, RPA as a party didn’t show much enthusiasm for this approach. And the coming elections are going to be not among people but among parties.
It’s a well-known truth that people never lie as much as after going hunting and before elections. The campaign period is quite understandable because everybody knows it’s a sequence of tempting lies. But it’s pretty obvious that Oskanyan’s recent statement is also part of the great campaign. This statement is directed to the international organizations. So it turns out that two messages are being sent out – one for the people and another for the international community. According to the first one, we are very close to the resolution of the Karabakh conflict, but for that it’s necessary that the current government retain power. According to the second message, Armenia will continue to develop under the current circumstances, and there will going to be no compromises. Now a question. Which of the two messages is truthful?
We think both are not truthful. On one hand we are not close to the conflict resolution; on the other hand it’s impossible to develop in these circumstances, and the government understands all this very well. Thus, both of these messages are only elements of the large governmental campaign.