The books of classic writers are very cheap in book stores and Vernisage. For instance, the separate collections of the books Dostoevski and Chekhov cost as much as the price per vote during the past city council elections, i.e. around 3-5,000 drams. It is understandable that the voters who took bribe were not going to buy the two books of Karamazov brothers but a piece of cheap soap, oil and matches.
Should I discuss the topic of the city council elections again when everything is clear and it is a fact that the Central Electoral Commission approved the results of the elections without noticing the fact that the major part of Yerevan’s citizens don’t agree to recognize Gagik Beglaryan as a legitimate mayor of the capital city?
However, the biggest surprise for the citizens who did not take part in the elections in order not to appear in a shameful situation was not the news that Beglaryan was elected but the violations that were committed by MP Samvel Alexanyan and a woman from the 8/22 electoral commission named Margush in the presence of the British Ambassador. Shortly it turned out that the latter was not an ordinary commission member but the sister of the RL party candidate for mayor Heghine Bisharyan’s. In order to commit a violation she did a very funny thing (there are detailed press publications about it). The example of Ms. Margush was really unprecedented: according to the interpreter of the British Ambassador and the monitor of Transparency International organization, this woman was ready to protect her right of committing an electoral violation with her breast (in the very literal sense of the word).
All what happened on the election day and aftermath shows that in favor of preventing the degradation of the society the political system configuration should be revised. Furthermore, yesterday the head of Heritage party Raffi Hovhannisyan advised the same thing. He suggested the Armenian National Congress, ARF and Heritage to unite.
In a word, he suggested to make a coalition consisting of opposition powers. Even though the idea of a strong opposition is very attractive, the Armenian reality shows that the unities which are not supported by power, spheres of influence and money, as a rule don’t survive long. In the case if the ANC, ARF and Heritage unite the alliance will not survive long either. First, the Heritage has numerously shown that they are not a reliable partner and every time before elections the national interests or the interests of people become more important to them than the interests of the coalition.
I think that the ANC is not ready to give up on their ambitions in order to establish a strong opposition. It was shown before the city council elections as well, when they started to press on another opposition power, the Heritage party, to the extent that they refused to take part in the elections with their own candidate.
Several days ago the head of the Heritage faction Armen Martirosyan and MP Zaruhi Postanjyan announced that as an opposition the ANC did not justify its activities and reminded about the unclean technologies the ANC used against them before the city council elections. By the way, the Heritage gave up too and refused to nominate a separate candidate. Accordingly, the Heritage party and ANC already have certain problems to walk in the same direction together. Plus, before the elections the representatives of Heritage party announced that their party would participate in every election and would nominate a separate candidate each time. It is a fact that Raffi Hovhannisyan wants to participate in the presidential elections and win. In addition, the ANC leader and two people from the ARF (Vahan Hovhannisyan and Armen Rustamyan) have such ambitions too. After the city council elections of Yerevan the ARF appeared in a bad situation and saw that it doesn’t have a large constituency of voters despite the supporters of the ANC and RPA. This fact resulted in more alienation and made the possibility of uniting more complicated. From this point of view the authorities are in a more beneficial position. There is no competition within the coalition. The coalition powers are less intellectual than the ANC, which makes it easier for the RPA to control the coalition from one center, and the RPA people, PA and RL parties don’t mind.
It is like a close chain. The authorities are out of power already and are dangerous. The opposition is not able to struggle against this strong system. All legal methods of struggle are failed in Armenia. Our history shows that in such cases there is only one way, which alas starts from an extreme disappointment and ends with blood and revenge. It seems that everything is going through this path.