– Recently when speaking of the upcoming May 31 mayoral elections you have mentioned that they will proceed in the same manner as always. What exactly did you mean? If you mean systematic violations then do you think people will live with those or do you think the tragic events of March 1 will repeat again?
– I hope that March 1 events will not be repeated because one drop of blood of a man isn’t worth any election or victory of a political actor in elections. As of what I mentioned early I mean that in order to change something positively we need to work on that. No work has been done since the last elections. Of course after March 1 there were many requests and suggestions for cooperation, dialog but surprisingly none of those requests contained any agenda. I mean there was no agenda around what issues the parties should cooperate with each other. One of the sides was trying its best to retain power and the other one was doing its best to come to power. They didn’t have any other objective. And it’s impossible to reach that with such actions. Therefore, they should have thought on what should have been done to improve the situation and contribute to the conduct of fairer upcoming elections.
– The parties and political units have included numerous artists, actors and composers in their proportional lists in order to look more representative. Do you think in these elections the lists will matter or the voters will as usual vote for the political party regardless of who is on the list?
– Of course, only the lists won’t do much. These people will participate in the campaigns. They will make speeches and in these conditions of course they should have been in the lists. But I think this fact itself is an outcome of Soviet mentality. In the political struggle the quality of political teams is very important but not to the extent of being an actor, singer, etc. The political activity requires serious political knowledge, experience and ability. I think no matter how beloved the actors are people are not going to elect the party for having good actors in the lists because you don’t elect actors or singers. People elect politicians – people who can realize politics. I don’t think that the inclusion of these people in the lists will bring any credits to the parties.
– Many and mostly the government representatives insist that the mayor of Yerevan think that the mayor’s post is not as much of a political post as of civic/public. Thus, they mean that Levon Ter-Petrosyan won’t be able to do green planting in Yerevan or garbage collection. In your opinion this new position is political or not?
– I suggest speaking of the results of the NA election. Due to this parliament the law on Yerevan was adopted and four of the main factions almost unanimously voted for the draft. It means that they all voted to conduct the mayoral elections through proportional lists. The political parties participate in political and party processes. As a party they don’t participate in tree planting, etc. So it is no need even to ask whether the elderly council elections of Yerevan are political or a public post. It means the law already answers this question. Let me say even more. In many countries, where there is a strong democracy, not only mayoral elections but also community elections are considered political processes. But in our case we also have a problem that many of our politicians have a Soviet mentality. There are people, who think that the politician doesn’t necessarily have to be literate or a professional. According to them the politician should be someone, who speaks without making sense. It is totally useless to speak or contemplate anything with these people. Of course the fact of being literate doesn’t contradict to being a good organizer. Vice versa, as political activity is a collective activity then very good organizational traits are needed. In order to conduct a good and active activity inside the party good organizational approaches are needed and so people should have an organizational tendency.
– You have participated in various elections and you know that since 1996 the opposition has always had victory in the capital city. There are certain opinions that by not joining the Armenian National Congress the opposition Heritage party nullifies the votes of the ANC. Do you agree with this and do you think that due to this the votes of the opposition will reduce?
– If one reviews the main requirements of the law and understands the logic of the provisions he/she will understand that the best outcome the opposition would achieve if the ANC and Heritage ran the elections in a single list. There are two options. First one is that if somebody overcomes the 40% barrier and receives over half of the seats, which already brings to electing a mayor from among the members of the elderly council. And the second option is that if one of the parties doesn’t overcome that barrier it can join other parties and through collation make 50% of the seats and thus nominate and endorse their candidate of the mayor. I think there can’t be anyone, who would say if the Heritage ran with the ANC the opposition would gain fewer votes. So it is obvious that if the Heritage ran with the ANC the opposition more votes and would have better chances to overcome the 40% barrier. But on the other hand if they ran separately I don’t think they’d still win 50% of votes. Comparably they lost 10% of the votes as they ran separately. It means that by running in the elections with the ANC the Heritage would provide at least 10% more for the opposition’s victory. It is obvious that no matter how the Heritage requests everyone to vote for the ANC it still wouldn’t comparably be higher compared to the fact if the Heritage actually ran the race. I am not sure that any political force can separately gain 40% of the votes. 40% is a very high threshold for Yerevan. Therefore it is obvious that the strategy of the coalition is really efficient. If the coalition parties each overcome the 7% threshold they will have the chance to have over 50% of the seats of the elderly council and thus be able to nominate and endorse their mayoral elections.