Last week was another week for disappointment from the point of view of both economy and politics. It is normal that in the pre-election period everything must be viewed through the prism of elections. The expectations for appreciation of the national currency did not come true. Iranians did not spend huge cash flow in the market either. Neither the oligarchs that sponsor pre-election campaign exchanged their foreign currency for the purpose of spending on pre-election activities. The exchange rate of dollar grew and again crossed the limit of 390. The disappointment was doubled when the police published the pre-election lists nominated for the parliamentary elections. Before the publication of these lists there was some optimism and international organizations and community were petitioning the political powers of Armenia to organize fair elections. Our political powers announced that they had taken those advices. Even the Prosperous Armenia party that is a part of the coalition believed in this and announced that they would protect their votes. Even the society was going to believe in it. But the pre-election lists did not let it happen. Even though there have not been fair elections in Armenia since 1991, the society had hopes. As it happened during all past elections, this time the voter lists hit the record again. There were 2,320,000 people in the lists for the presidential election 2008, but now there are 2,486,000 voters in the list. During the past four years the number of voters has grown by 166,000. Where did they take this number from? In early 1990s annually 30-50 babies were born in Armenia, and in 2000 this had the results. Maybe the authors of the pre-election voter lists based on this fact to make the lists. They have multiplied this by four. As a calculation it is correct, but it is wrong from the point of view of demography because they have not taken into account the death rate. As people understand, the growth of population is the difference between the birth and death rates. In 2005 the population grew by 11,000, in 2005 – 10,500, in 2008 – 14,000, in 2009 – 17,000, and in 2010 – 17,000. In 2011 this rate went down to 15,400. In 1990s the birth rate growth was faster than the economic growth. However, whatever it is, it cannot grow as fast as it is taken into account in the voter lists that have been published, even if we take that the children born in 1992-94 have stayed in Armenia. In other word, even if we assume that there has been no migration during the past 20 years, this list is exaggerated. To save the situation we could announce that demography is a fake science and those that have good logic should leave from the country. These people with good logic are the ones that are killing the hope that anything may change after the elections in 2012. As soon as the lists were published by the police, those were posted in the web site of the Central Electoral Commission, which mission is free and fair elections. The lists will be available for review in polling stations, but journalists have done some research and found a precinct in Yerevan (9th precinct) where there are 562 voters with the name Lusine, but with different patronymic and birth date. The CEC has found an explanation, but as far as demography has not announced to be a fake science, the government has two options. Either they must announce that the dead people in the lists are honored citizens and hence will participate in all elections, or they must announce that this is not logical. It seems there is no other option which would be logical.
