These days the Armenian authorities and the opposition are busy with two things: they are propagandizing the constitutional amendments and gloating over the comments made about the Azeri parliamentary elections by foreign countries. We can see things clearly if we separate these two activities, but if we put them together we get a discrepancy.
Judge for yourselves: on one hand, the authorities debate about the fact that Azerbaijan fell back about 4-5 years from European integration due to its humiliating parliamentary elections, on the other hand they are propagandizing the constitutional amendments with violations knowing very well that the same observers from the international organizations will take part in the referendum. Nothing will really change even if the referendum (vote) goes on without any violations. The results were positive for the Azeri voting polls, but the elections as a whole were negative.
There is another important thing: how come any top-duty official of Armenia has not announced until now that anyone who falsifies during the elections will be severely punished? Let’s try and find the answer to this question.
It is true that the authorities are conducting surveys and are pretty much familiar with the society’s opinion as a whole. We are not talking about the ordered “commercial” surveys. The authorities must have realistic view of the society’s opinion (of course, only for use of service) in order to decide whether to falsify the results of the election or not. So, there is no doubt that the authorities have gotten the whole picture. Now consider the following: let’s say that the authorities have found out that 60% of people will vote “yes” to the constitutional amendments. What were the top-duty officials going to do then? They would announce that they were going to do their best to make the referendum be fair and severely punish those voters who falsify. But the authorities are not making such announcements. We can come to the following conclusion: currently the society tends on saying “yes”.
At the same time, there are several developments going on in the opposition field. The opposition is propagandizing “no” with the help of three teams: the “Justice” alliance, “National Unity” and “17+1”. Of course, they keep emphasizing that there are no discrepancies between the three, but it is apparent that the “17+1” alliance’s activities are starting to get on the authorities nerves and the nerves of “Justice” alliance and “National Unity”. There are even some views being expressed at the “National Unity” sessions that the union members (this refers to Aram Sargsyan) need to either act accordingly to the alliance or leave. In any case, the opposition is carrying out its activities in the Marzes and since there is no issue with individuals (this refers to the referendum and not to the elections), it will not really matter if the opposition decides to not center its attention only on that.
As for the other events, we must mention the fact that there are extraordinary events going on out of the political field. The bird flu has reached ultimate heights and there are even some foresights that the flu might affect 5-150 million people. Just last month about 5 thousand wild birds were killed in northwest Iran. In other words, the world is overturned. In all that chaos, suddenly Armenian scientists appear on television and announce that there is no reason to panic because the bird flu had been discovered a long time ago and it is a usual sickness. Also, the bird meat becomes safe after cooking it for a couple of minutes…
This strange discrepancy may have two explanations. First, Armenian scientists are geniuses and the rest of the world’s scientists are just in panic. Secondly, the producers of eggs and other bird products have many financial losses (according to some evaluations, the danger for bird products has reduced by 40%) and they have decided to “fight against” their losses along with other company owners.
As to which one of these discrepancies is the most suitable, I leave that up to the reader.