The electoral campaign coming to the end in Armenia was aimed at preserving the power of President Serzh Sargsyan and the Republican Party, therefore it was very far from democratic standards, the director of the Institute of Contemporary Economics Nikita Isayev said, commenting on the upcoming Parliamentary elections in Armenia to Vestnik Kavkaza
"The current electoral campaign in Armenia is far from being a role model for conducting democratic election campaigns, which Armenia seeks, declaring European values and approaches.The campaign abounds with a large number of obvious violations of democratic procedures of the direct expression of the society's will," he noted in the first place.
According to Nikita Isayev, the manipulative technologies used during the campaign have already called into question the legitimacy of the future parliament of Armenia. "There were a lot of such technologies, including financial ones, and they will undoubtedly cast a shadow on the formation of a new parliament," the political scientist is sure.
"I see the great desire of Sargsyan's Republican Party to remain in a new political configuration, despite the highest degree of tension and low level of confidence from the population. I believe that such a campaign will not add any legitimacy to the ruling party and will plant a ticking time bomb of the political imbalance in Armenia in any political configuration, it does not matter which republic it would be - a presidential or parliamentary one," he stressed.
Traditionally, the Karabakh issue was used to achieve this goal during the pre-election campaign. "There is a basic position of Serzh Sargsyan, who is interested in the escalation of the conflict, I think, his recent statement on the Iskanders is one of the attempts to escalate for obtaining additional political points while playing the Karabakh card before the Armenian citizens," Nikita Isayev noted.
"There are parties of pro-European type and the Armenian National Congress of former President Levon Ter-Petrosyan, calling for the surrender of Yerevan's positions on Karabakh to settle the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, but they are perceived in the Armenian society as low-ranking ones. I'm sure that their position will not find support among Armenian citizens in the parliamentary elections," the director of the Institute of Contemporary Economics added.
