Yesterday the Armenian National Congress held a political council session and discussed the format and dates of starting the rallies scheduled for February and most attractively they discussed the issues of formation of the pre-election lists.
However, as the governmental parties, the non-parliamentary opposition keeps their plans in secret from public. As the government the ANC also says that they will share their plans with the public only after clarifying the formats and contents. And the impression is so that the key players of the political field refuse to reveal their playing cards. They wait for their opponents to do so first so that they could make the necessary clarifications in their decisions. And the ANC together with the RPA and the PA are considered the key players during the spring race. The society and the political field mainly wait to see the decisions of the three parties on the table, which stubbornly are being delayed. After the session of the political board ANC coordinator Levon Zurabyan told us that they were preparing for rallies due in February and March. “You know that we are preparing for a mass rising, the goal of which is to reach the resignation of Serzh Sargsyan. And all the discussions, in particular the city council of Hrazdan or NA elections, are being done with complete seriousness. We don’t live in a democratic country. And here elections are rigged. In this regard we are trying to activate people in order to reach actual democracy. In this context we have started our discussions regarding the format of participating in the upcoming elections,” said Zurabyan. He didn’t wish to give any more details about their agreements and plans made between the ANC parties. They also didn’t tell when the first ANC rally of the year will take place. “We have an agreement not to publicize the opinions of various parties. We will publicize our plans and formats of participation when the time comes and if the majoritarian system is annihilated we will apply a different tactic. We have discussed very general principles during our discussion,” added Zurabyan and hasn’t mentioned when they were going to end their discussions. Of course, it will be naïve to believe that the opposition will succeed in imposing a 100% proportional system. Indeed, the parliamentary opposition, the Heritage and ARF are also for the elimination of the majoritarian system and have prepared a certain legislative bill but the government doesn’t have any intention to refuse the proportional system on the threshold of parliamentary elections. So does the ANC have sufficient number of high-profile politicians to nominate them in the 41 single-mandate districts? Zurabyan ensured that they do. If they do, does this mean they will nominate them in all the districts? This matter is not decided yet. The media reportedly expresses opinions that within the Congress there are contradictions regarding the proportional list. Not only in the alliance but also within parties this is a painful question. All the political actors of the Congress think that they are more prepared and deserve to be included in the list. And the list cannot include all of them in the leading positions. For example, people claim that the PA and RPA lists will include those, who pay for their positions or provide a substantial number of votes for their respective parties. So all the political parties have challenges to overcome in this regard. Especially the Congress is going through hard times because it consists of 18 political parties. So what principles are used to form the leading positions of the party? First, if they are going to pick a leader from each party they have to decide, who’s going to lead the list. “Our objective is to come to a certain consensus. That’s exactly what we are doing. This is a quite serious process,” said Zurabyan. In the fall of 2010 the Congress convened a few rallies and even organized a day and night seven-day rally. These events would often be crowded and often not so. It’s clear that the activeness of the spring rallies was not noticed in the fall. What steps should the Congress undertake to regain the trust of its supporters and organize uprising? Doesn’t the Congress fear that they might not succeed? “This has always been noticeable. Four years have passed. Our greatest rallies are in spring and in the fall there is lower participation. It’s seasonal. We reach the peak when the workers from abroad are still in Armenia. And this happens till April. We normally reach the culmination when the villagers are not busy with farming. This also takes place by April. After tough winter people are more inclined to uprising. The March 1 rally plays an important role. This already has a symbolic importance for the nation,” said Zurabyan. So instead of thinking of restoring the trust of voters the ANC is mostly thinking about the seasonal participation of its supports in the rally.