CONTINUING TO PLAY PATRIOTISM

Lragir.am
July 7, 2007

The campaign of the presidential election in Nagorno-Karabakh Republic
takes place in a queer way. In the previous elections the government did
not involve so "influential" public clusters. And the reason is known.
Three core circumstances have never coincided in the political history
of NKR. The president leaving office has never intended to remain the
head of NKR through the new president, there was no independent
candidate in the previous presidential elections, and official Yerevan
does not endorse absolutely the intention of the acting president. There
is one more circumstance. The elections in NKR have never been in the
focus of the international community, especially when the roles of the
opponents outside and people who express some positive political ideas
literally coincide. It means in case of probable statements on the
illegitimacy of the election the critics from the outside might have to
give clear definitions. If the election is adequate, the evaluation will
be "illegitimate election", and the evaluation will be "illegitimate
election" in case they have to recognize its adequacy. However, the
present political leadership of NKR may hardly have an idea of the real
external atmosphere where NKR will appear, therefore the three
circumstances which determine the behavior of President Ghukasyan and
his team are enough.

Refreshing the scenario from time to time, stereotyped patriotic
organizations are involved with the groups of support for Arkady
Ghukasyan. At the same time, the authors of the scenario did not pay
attention to the fact that the involvement of the ARF Dashnaktsutyun in
this affair ended up with a scandal inside the party; as soon as doubts
appeared about willingness to return the lowlands of Karabakh to
Azerbaijan, its leadership stated through its grand secretary Kiro
Manoyan (the last of the Mohicans of the revolutionary epic) that
Dashnaktsutyun is against returning part of the province of Karabakh and
is for settling these territories. They had been silent for a few years
and now the Dashnaks suddenly spoke up. However, this is certainly a
good sign. Now they have got down to the veterans of the Karabakh war.
The veterans of Karabakh have already endorsed Ghukasyan’s intention,
and now the leader of the veterans of Armenia Manvel Grigoryan has said
to support. It is interesting who else among the veterans "supports".
The veterans of war are people who perform a public role, and wait for
another war rather than one election or another. Before supporting one
candidate or another the veterans had better inquire from them if "they
are going to return the lands or not" and "if they are not going to
return, how aren’t they going to return?" It is O.K. to make patriotic
calls when capitulation is far away, but they have to recall all the
statements when the moment of discretion comes. For everyone will be
asked whom they supported in the recent past. The veterans of the
Karabakh war are not silent participants of holiday parties, who are
willing to vote for anyone. This intention will fail like in the case of
Dashnaktsutyun.

Or maybe there is another circumstance, related to involving someone
else in these secret activities?

IGOR MURADYAN

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress