Externally the public life seems quite calm. It’s quiet just like before any election winds. Nothing essential is happening in the economic life of the country either. The AMD rate also remains the same. In countries like Armenia the national currency usually goes down before elections. The number one reason is the expectation of political turbulence and tumults. In all developing countries elections mean unclearness. No one knows who is going to come to power, what economic policy will be made, etc. In our case the answers of those questions are not important. Elections don’t contain any intrigues and surprises but are mandatory. According to the so-called legislation elections must be conducted every once a while. There must be political forces both rightists and leftists, pro-governmental, centric and oppositional announcements must be made. That’s a custom. It’s been followed for 16 years in Armenia and everybody living here must abide this mandatory action. From election to election the political platforms of political parties become more interesting and similar. This especially relates to the economic sector. As a rule those platforms don’t imply anything concretely. The great economic progress was interrupted by the recent self-arson case on February 27. The media explained this as a populist act and promises on the part of governmental forces. The self-arson person believed in the promises that deposits of Soviet Times must be retried. Later he got frustrated. That’s the reason why the parties and blocs are being more moderate when giving economic promises to the people. The Parliamentary majority – the Republican Party wishes to run for the third term. That’s why doesn’t want to give unbelievable promises. They also have another great challenge. That is to explain others why they didn’t succeed in the fulfilling their promises and what they are going to change once they get elected again. 2007 is not a very good year of elections. In 2006 the economic development suffered instead of growing. Agriculture didn’t develop either. The opposition also doesn’t make too many promises either. The populist politicians also got bored by giving unrealistic promises. Few people believe that Artashes Geghamyan and Stepan Demirchyan will be able to emancipate power and fulfill their promises. No one gives any promise regarding infrastructure development – pipeline construction and reconstruction, energy generators, water reservoirs, etc. The Legal State, which is comparably a newer party, has already consumed the whole package of its pre-election promises 2003. They didn’t care about the future and promised whatever they could just to get elected – high salaries, return of deposits, pensions and a rule of law. Only the promise of deposits was partly fulfilled. And now there are no more promises left. Only Tigran Karapetyan with party remains opulent with promises. The methods of the opposition to convince people are worn out and now it’s not possible to make the people determined with those. By having great respect to the Chair of the NDU, Vazgen Manulyan I should say that if he boycotts the coming elections things may look dangerous. This party has never been a populist in its economic plans. Therefore, it becomes obvious that in our political public life people don’t much care about ideology. They more care about material things, such as potatoes or threads. Those are mentioned especially in Armenia’s newly prospering party platform.
