Author: Susanna Petrosian, Yerevan, exclusively to VK
Today in Armenia the presidential campaign will start, and now the CEC is registering observers. Several local and five major international organizations - PACE, ICES (International Expert Center for Electoral Systems), the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights - the OSCE/ODIHR, the Interparliamentary Assembly of the CIS and the CIS observation mission - have already signed up
The process prior to the campaign has been generally colorless, without the usual pre-election hype. The only step that falls out of context of this slow process was the statement by one of the presidential candidates, the director of "Radio Ai" Andreas Ghukasyan, about his intention to go on hunger strike from January 21 if the CEC does not deregister the government candidate, incumbent President Serzh Sargsyan. Ghukasian is sure that the ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) abuses its position in the state and is not a bona fide rival to the other competitors. "The higher public's right to free elections in a political situation can be realized only in the case of exclusion from the election of the candidate of the ruling party. If before the start of the election campaign the registration of the candidate from the ruling party will not be deemed to be invalid, I will assume that my personal electoral right and the public right is being violated. My civic duty dictates announcing an indefinite hunger strike for the protection of this right," the presidential candidate said.
The hard decision of Ghukasian was not adequately reviewed by a society that is indifferent to everything happening in the political arena, as it sees no alternative to the authorities. Society in Armenia today is much more interested in a chess tournament in the Dutch city of Wijk aan Zee, in which Aronian is involved, and the preparation of Shakhtar Donetsk FC, where a famous Armenian footballer Henrik Mkhitaryan plays, to play in the Champions League against Germany's Borussia Dortmund. Such an indifference of society to what the politicians say on TV is a natural background for non-competitive elections.
The second distinguishing feature of the race was the disappearance of the "triangle of presidents" - reducing the impact of the two ex-presidents on the political process. Until recently, experts mentioned all three presidents in the list of major players in the political field of Armenia. Following the refusal of Levon Ter-Petrosyan to participate in the presidential race, the second president Robert Kocharyan also refused to do this. Last week, the latter declared the inexpediency of his participation in the elections: "I do not want to participate in the extremely unpleasant and surely harmful for the country format of three presidents vying for power. Searching for a political compromise in Armenia has been transformed into small-retail political bargaining. And that's not something that I would like to spend my time, knowledge and experience on. These factors, of course, are not fundamental, but I have found them substantial enough from emotional and ethical points of view."
The current situation has already been dubbed the end of an era of the three presidents and the beginning of a change of political generations. The generation of politicians that have emerged during the Karabakh movement is gradually disappearing from the scene. But talking about generational change is quite early - none of the people acting on the Armenian political scene have retired from politics. Rather, the situation will become clearer after the presidential elections on February 18. We cannot rule out that the weakening influence of the ex-presidents on the process could be temporary.
For the first time, major political forces - the Armenian National Congress (ANC), ARF and "Prosperous Armenia" (PA) - not willing to play by the rules of the authorities, refused to participate in the fight and serve only as observers. Of course, the political struggle is not limited to the format of the participation in the presidential election. However, the lack of candidates of the leading political forces outside the party in power in the race for the presidency is a kind of unique event in the history of Armenia and is the third feature of these elections.
During these elections, Sargsyan will receive the full legal legitimacy that he did not have in 2008, but he will not receive political legitimacy, which would be a сonsequence of the non-participation in the election of the ANC, Prosperous Armenia and the ARF, which received more than 600,000 votes in the last parliamentary elections. None of these three forces support any of the candidates.
Another feature of the race was the lack of any tension in the political arena, as well as in society. The elections will take place without disruption. This situation is typical for either developed democracies or completely authoritarian or totalitarian countries. Experts call the current regime in Armenia a hybrid one, wearing certain elements of democracy: the availability of alternative candidates for the presidency and the presence of pluralism in the press. But the fact remains - the presidential election does not answer any of the questions which are really of concern to society.
