The National Assembly elections that took place on May 12 were not only unique with the level of perfection of falsifications, but also with the abundance of people “let down” by the authorities. It is no secret that the results of elections in Armenia are not conditioned by the citizens of Armenia, rather by the will of certain people. This forces many to make a deal with the authorities before the elections in order to have a seat in parliament. The parties or individuals that make deals with the government take on certain responsibilities in order to get the “okay” of the government to get into parliament, for example, disband the opposition, or “let down” the oppositionists during responsive and decisive moments – oppositionists who have not made deals with the government, etc. There are different names for those types of parties and/or individuals-the mine placed in the oppositional field, the phony opposition, and more. It is obvious that there are always people who are “let down” by the government after each election because the government makes many promises, but the parliament seats are limited.
It is clear that this year the list of “let downs” was headed by Tigran Karapetich. The man, as they say “stupidly” spent 7 million dollars on his election campaign, but didn’t receive one mandate. In fact, due to understandable reasons, the Central Electoral Commission and the Prosecutor General’s office left Karapetich’s announcement with no response (the law prohibits spending more than 60 million drams (nearly 167,000 dollars) during a campaign). They say that before the elections Karapetich had announced that he is no longer going to host the program “Shokekarsh” (Locomotive) [it was the “television game show” during which the grandmas and grandpas compare Karapetich with God or Tigran the Great and “win television sets”]. So, by this Tigran Karapetich openly confessed that he was giving out “television sets” with the hope of getting the vote of the person receiving it.
The next person “let down”, of course, was Gurgen Arsenyan with his United Labor Party. It turned out that Mr. Arsenyan didn’t even want to be in parliament because the United Labor Party says: “We want what you all want”. Judging from the results of the party’s votes, people don’t want ULP to be in parliament. The ULP was also busy with distributing electoral bribes, but unlike Karapetich, who had started doing that years ago, the ULP was distributing electoral bribes on Election Day and a couple of days before and in the form of cash and not “television sets”.
Artashes Geghamyan has an honorable place in the list of “let downs”. However, the authorities were very cruel with someone who had supported them in difficult times. Let’s not forget Stepan Demirchyan’s People’s Party of Armenia to which, according to H1 (Public Television), the television station had provided the most hours of airtime and was hoping that the People’s Party of Armenia would have had at least 6-7 mandates. Of course, we could also consider Samvel Babayan as “let down”. Samvel Babayan removed his nomination in the majoritarian system, but did not even make the 5% by the proportional system. You can continue the list of “let downs” if you wish.