Aravot, Armenia
Feb 1 2007

Commentary
Just a technical problem

by Aram Abraamyan

Many people were sceptical when [former National Security Minister]
David Shakhnazaryan said that an election is not expected in Armenia.
[The parliamentary election is to be held on 12 May.] But he may be
right. How can a process whose result is 100-per-cent predictable be
considered an election? If the political and public atmosphere for
holding an election is lacking, it does not matter how the
authorities attain their goal – through vote buying, falsification of
the results, or in some other way.

Perhaps the only intrigue in the forthcoming parliamentary election
would be a possible confrontation between the RPA [Republican Party
of Armenia] and PAP [Prosperous Armenia Party] as a result of
economic rivalry among the power clans, but this is hardly likely. It
is almost certain that the clans will be modest and will manage to
divide up parliament (the economic levers), avoiding conflicts over
the first-past-the-post seats and sharing the proportional
percentages "fairly".

With just five or ten representatives, the other three or four
parties, regardless of whether they are in opposition or
pro-government, will not have any influence in parliament.

Thus the only problem left for the authorities to resolve before the
"election" is consolidation of the economic elite around the RPA-PAP
axis. At present, believing that the National Unity Party and the Law
Governed Country Party are serious competitors, the authorities have
concentrated their attention on them.

But propaganda is useless when there is a subject – a citizen, a
voter – who can decide which party will suggest more attractive
programmes in future – the Marxist party or, let us say, the
Trotskyites. Unfortunately, there is no such subject in Armenia.

Much the same can be said about training the police to beat people.
This suggests that the authorities are expecting an attempt at a
"colour revolution". But there will be no such attempt in Armenia in
the next two or three years. The main reason for this is that the
people do not want such a revolution.