OPPOSITION OR PROTESTING ELECTORATE?
Naira Hayrumyan

KarabakhOpen
13-03-2007 14:55:46

In Karabakh the election campaign set out strangely with accusations
against the opposition. Тhe opposition is constantly accused
of venality, scandals, and even anti-democracy. However, nobody
has stated yet who is opposition in Karabakh. The opposition is
an organized political force which disagrees with the policy of
the government and wants to come to power to conduct a different
policy. It follows from this classic definition that there is no
opposition in Karabakh. There is not an organized force (party) or
separate people who do not trust the government and desire to come
to power. There are political parties which are dissatisfied with
something. For instance, the ARF Dashnaktsutyun is dissatisfied
with the internal policies, namely the manpower policy and the
policy of re-settlement. However, this organized force apparently
does not desire power. This is the only item on the list of the
dissatisfied politicians. There is a considerable mass of people
in the country, however, who are not organized politically and
do not aspire to power but are dissatisfied with the government’s
policies. They are the protesting electorate. These people do not
have political ambitions, they are interested in politics to the
degree it affects their lives. Businessmen who are stifled with
taxes and bureaucracy, pensioners whose retirement benefit is not
enough to buy food, people who suffered from legal arbitrariness,
in short the protesting electorate. In most cases the government has
levers to pressure on them, therefore they do not become an actively
protesting electorate. On the other hand, they are a major force and
every candidate will be fighting for the votes of these people in
the upcoming election.

For a number of reasons the protesting electorate in Karabakh is not
organized. First, this electorate does not have a leader. Second,
the government has isolated the society for such a long time from
governance playing politics with itself that the society has already
forgotten the rules. Third, the electorate does not have access to
the mass media, especially television. Fourth, the electorate has
not had an opportunity to voice protest: the elections did not have
an alternative so that it is hard to call them election.

This time everything may be different. And the protesting electorate
may have a deciding role.

–Boundary_(ID_VIHosj4mbuTMOr1XlT+gFQ)–