Susanna Petrosyan, Yerevan. Exclusively to Vestnik Kavkaza
The Central Election Committee of Armenia has finished filing of applications for candidates for the presidency. All the necessary documents, including a certificate on $20 thousand tax payment, were presented only by 7 candidates. They are the current president of Armenia and the leader of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia Serge Sargsyan; the leader of the party Heritage and the former foreign minister Raffi Ovannisyan; the chairman of the part Freedom and the former prime minister Grant Bagratyan; the chairman of the union National Self-Identification Paruir Airikyan; the former head of the Nagorno-Karabakh foreign ministry Arman Melikyan; the head of the company “Radio I” Andreas Gukasyan; and the independent candidate, the epos expert Vardan Sedrakyan.
In general 15 people sent their applications, eight of whom couldn’t continue the competition because they didn’t pay the fee. Most of these people are unknown to Armenian society.
On January 5th, the registration of candidates began. According to the election code, it will last for 10 days. The election campaign takes the start on January 21st and will last to February 16th.
For the first time in 22 years Armenia will hold politically noncompetitive presidential elections without any intrigue. This is a result of the governmental policy on holding purely democratic elections. An extra parliamentary session which was initiated by the opposition on November 21st, 2012, only proved this. Then, the Armenian National Congress which was supported by other opposition forces – Dashnaktsutyun, Heritage, Prosperous Armenia – proposed amendments to the election laws, which were aimed at improvement of election processes. However, the parliamentary majority boycotted the initiative.
Such an attitude by the government made the opposition decide: whether to take part in the presidential campaign under the governmental rules which rely on falsifications or to reject the participation.
“A criminal system organized at the governmental level was formed in the country. The system of giving election bribes and repeat voting is supported by all state executive bodies and the ruling party. Actually the mechanism of competitive elections is destroyed; businessmen who support the opposition are terrorized; falsification of 500-700 thousand votes of citizens who are living abroad prevents any possibility of changing power. Considering the situation, the ANC thinks it is pointless to participate in the elections and support any candidate,” the ANC statement says.
Dashnaktsutyun and Prosperous Armenia have also rejected participation in the elections. It led to desertification of the political field. Experts call this a negative index of the happening processes in the country, and absence of competition leads to predetermination. Political forces see no opportunities for changes. It influences social opinion, as the majority of the population doesn’t want any changes. Even today sociologists predict a drastic decrease of a number of voters at these elections. Most probably people who are ready to vote for Gagik Tsarukyan, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, and a Dashnak candidate won’t come to ballot stations, as they do not hope for any of the presented candidates. These voters include more than 50% of voting population.
Some pro-governmental sociologists say that the current president will get around 72% of votes. The government’s striving for improvement of the political monopoly and forgetting that the opposition if an important constituent of statehood led to absence of competitiveness at the presidential elections. It will make the power which will certainly win the elections unstable and vulnerable for foreign forces.
