ELECTIONS – NO LONGER SUBJECT TO DISCUSSIONS
Armen Tsatouryan

Hayots Ashkhar
Published on March 11, 2008

Armenia turns over the page of its history

The final decision of the Constitutional Court regarding the February
19 presidential elections and the third interim report of the OSCE
Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights, coinciding with
the mitigation of the state of emergency declared in the capital city,
draw a specific kind of "red line" below the political developments
of the post-electoral period, creating a fundamentally new situation.

Examining the objections submitted by separate presidential candidates,
both the Constitutional Court and the international observation
missions have arrived at the conclusion that there are no relevant
legal bases for reviewing the results of the February 19 presidential
elections.

Thereafter, everything else, including the problem of overcoming
the flaws observed during the elections, is to be considered in the
process of preparing for the next electoral race.

In this period, both the legislative and executive powers of Armenia
and the Central Election Commission should draw relevant conclusions
and carry out certain activities.

But as they say, it’s a "different piece of music" because the further
improvement of the electoral process is one of the most important
tasks required for the modernization of the institutions of any
democratic state.

Actually, applying to the Constitutional Court, Ter-Petrosyan’s team
did not aim to appeal against the election results; all they did
was the speculation of the well-known incidents recorded in the pre-
and post-election periods, as well as on the voting day. And these
incidents were first of all caused by their own efforts. This once
again comes to prove that Ter-Petrosyan and his political team had,
from the outset, put their pledge not in the task of winning in
the February 19 elections, but rather, in the goal of provoking a
political instability and a revolution inside the country by using
the pre- and post-electoral processes. And when that goal fell flat,
they turned out to have no serious argument and absolutely nothing
to say with regard to the elections.

>From now on, the only "achievement" Ter-Petrosyan can be proud of
is the "bloody debauch" that took place on March 1-2. Nevertheless,
due to his activity, he did manage to cause a great harm to Armenia’s
reputation. And now he demands an international inquiry into the March
1 events, with the purpose of extorting political dividends from there.

There are clear-cut reasons for that: the country’s internal
political situation is stabilizing unflinchingly and the major
part of society have returned to their routine work as a result of
which a week after declaring a state of emergency there has started
a process of eliminating the temporary restrictions in the capital
city. In particular, the emergency state requirement for suspending
the activity of political parties is no longer in effect, and steps
are being undertaken towards eliminating the restrictions on the work
of the Mass Media.

The attempts of receiving the international community’s support with
the purpose of speculating the elections testify to the fact that
Ter-Petrosyan has nothing else to do in a country which is returning
to the normal course of its development. He has accomplished his
"minimum program" by playing with Armenia’s international rating and
reputation and is now trying to "export" all that and make Armenia
a subject of international-political speculations.

The presidential elections are no longer subject to discussions. There
are serious challenges in store for Armenia in the near future, and
tremendous work will be needed for overcoming them. All the political
forces and individuals concerned about Armenia’s future are being
involved in those activities by the country’s new leadership. Not
only the ruined streets and squares but also the mutual trust among
the people is being restored.

Thus, even though at the cost of certain losses, the Armenian
leadership and people find strength enough to overcome all the
difficulties we encountered in the course of the rapid post-electoral
developments.