Currently, the Armenian political system is based solely on the wish and “hints” of the president of Armenia, Robert Kocharyan. At the same time, these “hints” are not always kept confidential. During his eight year term he has made several such “hints” (in social countries these hints are called directives, in socially-orientated parties they are called encyclical letters). “Hint” number one (targeted to state officials): “do you want money when you already have it?” The meaning is clear: don’t use the means of the budget and try to solve the problem yourselves, you know how to do that, and if you can’t, resign and your position will be given to others. Please note that after this “hint” there haven’t been any state bodies complaining of lack of budget resources provided.
“Hint” number two (targeted to intelligentsia representatives): “don’t complain”. It is strange but they really don’t complain any more. Why should they complain if they can “praise” the architectural appearance of the Northern Prospect and earn good money, be recruited in the “One nation, one culture” festival, and those who are not clever enough to do so can join either “Nig-Aparan” union or “Prosperous Armenia” party? Instead of this, sometimes they can only complain a little about problems such as the problems of Armenians living in Javakhk.
“Hint” number three (targeted to oppositional parties): “by organizing rallies and undermining the political stability of our country you are supporting our enemies. This seems like treason”. Again it is strange that after this note the opposition doesn’t organize rallies any more. As for some oppositional actions, they are good for Kocharyan because it gives him an opportunity to develop our interests around the table of negotiations and explain this by saying that the political field of our country may lose its stability.
“Hint” number four (targeted to the organizers of the Constitutional referendum): “you should create a positive environment like the dance round the Aragats mountain to vote for the Constitution”. This means that the results of voting would be known before the referendum, and the voting process would be organized like a festive party. This was done well too and the referendum day looked like a festive occasion. But we should confess that not many understood the last “hint” and it wasn’t done in a duly manner. On the day of the referendum Kocharyan voted openly, thus encouraging everyone to do the same, but other people didn’t do that. The society was not ready for that yet.
Anyway, on the basis of the abovementioned facts we may assume that the 2007 parliamentary elections will be organized in the same manner too, i.e. elections will look like a festive occasion in Armenia. Intelligentsia representatives will not complain, oppositional parties will not organize big rallies (so as not to become betrayers), etc. Furthermore, now Viktor Dallakyan says that “Prosperous Armenia” party will do its best to conduct democratic and fair elections. We agree with him and his pragmatic approach. If some other oppositional parties say the same thing concerning the other governmental parties, the mentioned positive environment will be created before elections.
In fact, the only dangerous party is Manuk Gasparyan’s “Party of Democratic Forces”. He has announced that he is going to get a minimum 20% of votes and become prime-minister. This means that if he gets less than 20% of votes, he will announce that the elections were not fair and democratic. On the one hand he may, but on the other hand this may look like treason…