The latest “performance” of the parliament was the best. I don’t mean the words that the deputies use; we have got used to them already. I mean the surprising yet sincere critical statements made by the “Republican” and “Rule of Law” members; the two parties went against each other. As expected, at the end they both gave definitions about the main point: who has stolen from others and the state more. For instance, the republican said that the RL had stolen more. It is possible. Please pay attention to the word “more”. It means that all of them have stolen, it’s just that the RL has been more active and they don’t have a right to speak about topics like these. As the RL members mentioned certain names and accused certain people, I may assume that very soon the public prosecutor’s office will institute legal proceedings against some of the RL members (either for corruption or the tarnishing reputation). This is up to the public prosecutor’s office.
Why did this happen? The RL members criticized the authorities (the Republican Party and Serge Sargsyan) of preventing them from doing what they do and not letting them meet with the people or appear on TV. In other words, they argued that the authorities didn’t allow them to campaign. Why do parties need to campaign at all?
Generally, the pre-election campaign is a big factor in countries where the authorities are really elected by public vote. Alas, there are no reasons to say that the elections have always been organized in free, fair and democratic conditions in Armenia. Furthermore, there are no reasons to say that the upcoming elections may differ from the previous ones. In a word, the authorities may decide the ballot numbers before hand regardless of how the public has voted (or regardless of the fact whether people have voted or not). Accordingly, who do parties campaign for?
First, let’s discuss the methods of advocacy campaign. The authorities prefer certain jobs: asphalting roads, free potato seeds, free medical aid, donor blood, etc. As for the oppositional parties, due to “technical reasons” they prefer making promises.. Nevertheless, neither of these methods concerns politics and the future of the state generally. The problem is not the fact which of the political parties are kind, intelligent and fair, but rather the issue on how the state may develop during the next four years. In other words, it would be better if they stopped giving aid or medical services to citizens and started explaining to people just what they were going to do for the country; after all, the citizens can get those products by themselves. The same goes for the opposition. For instance, the RL has proposed discussing the reimbursement of the Soviet deposits of citizens and is talking about that the whole time. Does it concern the future of our country or its development strategy? In fact, it helps some people, but at the same time it doesn’t help solve long-term issues.
Finally, the goal of political parties is not to solve small problems for people, but to build a stable state, i.e. a state, where citizens don’t have such small problems. For that purpose, first of all we should understand how the challenges and the big problems of our country can be solved: the Karabakh conflict, developing relations with the neighboring countries, reduction of corruption, etc. If they manage to solve these problems, people will not need free medical aid or other things. Nevertheless, currently, neither of the current political parties speaks about these issues and challenges.
Now let’s return to the main issue: why do they need to campaign if the outcome is decided beforehand? Well, there are several reasons. First, they want to transform the pre-election campaign to another level in order to ignore the political side of the problem (the development strategy for the upcoming four years). The villagers that have been given potatoes can’t ask them what they think about the Karabakh conflict and the principles of Paris. The only thing they may say is that they don’t have grain seeds; or the citizens that were provided with free medical treatment can’t ask them “to explain their role on the U.S.’s initiative to develop relations between Armenia and Turkey in the context of the recent geopolitical processes.” The only thing they can do is ask them to provide medical treatment for his relatives as well.
The second reason is the fact that the political “proportions” for the upcoming 2007 parliamentary elections of have not been determined yet and thus the political powers are trying to show their “ambitions”. Besides that, it is time to prepare both the society and the international community for the expected outcome of the upcoming elections. There is another reason too: this advocacy campaign is not for the elections, but for the following several days after the elections. It is not necessary for the “targets” to go and vote; it is more important that they don’t take part in the rallies organized by the opposition during the several days following the elections.
In other words, everything is planned out well. Spending money on campaigning is justified and reasonable.