The results and process of the municipal elections in Hrazdan show how the authorities are getting prepared for the upcoming parliamentary elections, and in case of success even the presidential elections 2013. Former MP and political prisoner Sasun Mikayelyan, who is a member of the ANC now, has a very high reputation in that region but lost the competition with an official, who has been in office twice and is not famous with anything. This official is from the RPA. Even though Sasun Mikayelyan was nominated as a non-partisan candidate, he was supported by all opposition powers. In fact this was not the victory of a separate candidate but the victory of the authorities over the opposition. In this case “victory” really does not mean a victory. The elections in Hrazdan came to show a very dangerous thing. The authorities have developed the mechanisms of electoral violations so much, that the “classic” electoral violations don’t take place any more. Even though there were different violations, but during the voting process there were not violations such as ballot stuffing, carousel voting, etc. Instead of that everything had been done before the voters would go to the polling stations. Everything was done without noise and calmly. All the known methods were used, such as busing voters to polling stations, instructing them, electoral bribe, etc. What is more important, everything was done so good that Sasun Mikayelyan’s headquarter is not going to complaint. This was the most dangerous and biggest lesson of the election on February 12. This means that the administrative, criminal and other groups are working so good that are able to have the results de-facto and register them and pass de-jure as legitimate elections. In this situation it is understandable why the authorities make announcements every day committing to organize free and fair elections. This mechanism will be used during parliamentary elections as well. Of course during the parliamentary elections there will be fewer “major violators”, but they will do their best to have the situation as they had in Harzdan al over the country. This is a real challenge for all opposition powers because less than three months have remained till the elections. If the opposition does not find a way to oppose to this system, the authorities will have their planned results in the parliament. In fact this is a more dangerous challenge than the proposition to adopt a fully majoritarian system of elections, which the opposition powers were able to agree upon. In other words, the elections in Hrazdan can be somehow viewed as positive in terms of the fact that the authorities opened their cards and showed their tactics.
