BETWEEN A GOVERNMENT THAT BREACHES AND AN OPPOSITION THAT NAGS
Hakob Badalyan

Lragir
Jan 9 2008
Armenia

In fact, it would be absolutely ingenuous to think that the
presidential election in Armenia will be in full compliance with the
law, even if the top officials of Armenia assure the society with the
most honest eyes and the most frank voice. The situation in Armenia
is such that the political forces which will perhaps hold power for
a long time will have to transgress during the election to have more
or less considerable hope for reelection. If the elections were in
accordance with the law, no doubt after independence the government
would never win any election. Meanwhile, the contrary took place,
and the government won all the elections in independent Armenia which
allows concluding that all the elections have breached the law.

There is no reason to expect that the election 2008 will comply with
the law. Absoluteness is not concerned because law is broken in the
elections of all the countries. First of all, they are not outrageous
and deciding. Besides, the governments address them on time instead
of describing them as a bear’s favor and going on to celebrate
victory. On the other hand, however, Armenia has found itself in a
situation where despite little improvement of the quality of life
and constant violation of political and civil freedoms the government
gradually acquires a chance to be elected with less election fraud.

And the reason is not the growing role of election bribes. People
take bribes because they see no other way of benefiting from the
election. Meanwhile, an election, even if it is said to have a
pan-national or history making importance, it is just an event for a
person during which he tries to have a possibly favorable outcome for
his personal life. The rest – civil consciousness, future of children,
etc. – are mere declarations. In addition, not only in our country
but also in all the other countries. Simply the level of personal
problems is different in our countries. If the voter in Armenia is
interested in improving his quality of life, in the United States
and France, for instance, most of these problems have been solved,
and the level of personal concerns is closer to problems of social
importance. The difference in thinking of voters is this, not more.

Consequently, if someone expects from the voters of Armenia a higher
level of thinking, they are in confusion, and the utmost achievement
will be blaming the society’s passiveness for their own failure, and
also for the illegal activities of the government. The point is that
the voters in Armenia have made a so-called civil vote for several
times – in 1996, 1998 and 2003 – when they voted for the opposition
which does not give bribes, does not use the administrative resource
and thinks about tomorrow and the future of children. But when they
did not arrive anywhere, and saw that after the election the people
who spoke about tomorrow and the future of children finally took
care of their own tomorrow and future and solved the vital problem
of holding on to the political sphere, the voters understood that a
civil vote is wrong and unprofitable.

No doubt, the vote for election bribe is also wrong because the
government is rewarded by improving the methods of election fraud
which will afterwards enable it to get the desirable outcome without
giving out bribes. Now the most important question. Who will prevent
this situation from aggravating and developing? Certainly not the
society because the society is a general thing, a mere scapegoat for
the government, the opposition, the NGOs which solve a problem of
grants at the expense of the society. Definite people with definite
purposes, definite plans of actions, consistency must change the
situation, they must change it every day, not from one election to
another. In this case, they will become more attractive than the
money that the government gives out because money is spent, whereas
the society sees the actions. Armenia needs someone or some people
who will do definite things.

Otherwise, elections in Armenia will be marked by a government that
breaches and an opposition that nags, when one resorts to all the
possible and impossible methods to bypass the law, and the other
blames the indifference of the society, and they altogether wait
to see what the world will say. Meanwhile, the world will not say
anything because the world is busy with definite actions, namely a
government that breaches and an opposition that nags.