Post Tagged with: "Հայաստան"

• Not Who, but How

  EditorialMay 19, 2012 12:41 1 comment

  In Armenia, everything is really personified. If one takes a look at the press digest on websites, the issues that concern our society the most are whether Hovik Abrahamyan will be the Prime Minister or Tigran Sargsyan. Or will the Minister of Culture be from the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA), from the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) or non-partisan? Certainly, it is very important for the mentioned two parties, possible minister, his/her relatives, as well as the workers of the ministry – whom s/he will appoint, whom s/he will fire, whether she will “eat” moderately or will devour what s/he can. However, if one looks at that issue, for example, from the perspective of a music school teacher, the personality of the minister and his/her party membership lose their landmark significance and how much that teacher earns and why not, how much, at least, moral importance the state attaches to his/her work become much more important problems. Admittedly, comprehensive school teachers do important state work and they should receive state medical insurance packages and music school teachers just “provide services” like barbers or massagers and there is no package for them.

   

• Generally, Let Them Come

  EditorialMay 16, 2012 12:47 2 comments

  The position of the opposition on the issue of observers is not fully clear for me. Before elections, they and all of us seem to wish as many foreign observers as possible to come for the election, in order to prevent election fraud. After elections, a representative of the opposition, talking about observers that had come from different countries during a rally, shouted out “let them not come at all.” Let us make up our minds what is more important for us that the observers ensure the legality of the election or that they write a conclusion favorable for the opposition afterwards. I am under the impression that the first one is more realistic than the second one and the very proxies of the opposition reassert that the presence of foreigners in the polling stations plays a preventive role for the fraudsters representing the government. And it was pointless to expect a very strict, condemning report finding the election void – we have had much worse elections, on which the observers have written much better reports. Against the background of violence, gunshots, once even prolonging the election, as it went along, in all the previous elections, not accepting the results of the “peaceful fraud” would have been just unfair of the international community.

   

• Optimistic Scenario

  EditorialMay 9, 2012 12:54 no comments

  Levon Ter-Petrossian expressed a very apt idea at the time – if you can call this administration “regime” in a mass media publishing legally (not at the level of samizdat), then there is actually no regime at all. Certainly, it is about despotism, which hasn’t been

  there during the 20-year history of the independent Armenia and I hope it will never be there. More so now, when there are TV channels broadcasting in Armenia that express the opinions of the two parties and those parties – the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) and the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) – took an absolutely opposition attitude during the election campaign. Even if we don’t take into consideration websites and social networks, which are a relatively new phenomenon, and newspapers (opposition newspapers have always been there), then one can assert that the situation in the information field is absolutely new. Opposition TV channels haven’t broadcasted in Armenia – there was A1+, which was independent and which was deprived of broadcasting in 2002, the rest had been “free, but responsible” till April 2012.

  Three things are left to do: 1. The political forces “owning” those two TV companies should maintain their relative independence; 2. Those mass media shouldn’t be too partisan and offer an opportunity to other oppositionists – the Armenian National Congress (ANC) and the Heritage Party – as well as representatives of the government and people outside the created system, to express themselves; 3. If the first two conditions are met, the government should be smart enough not to persecute these two TV channels. (By the way, it is interesting why the videos testifying to election fraud are not shown almost at all.)

   

• Limited Progress

  EditorialMay 2, 2012 13:41 1 comment

  The reputed human rights organization Freedom House has concluded again that Armenia is a country with non-free press. I don’t know according to what criteria the assessment is made. However, insofar as I follow the mass media in Turkey and Georgia (where the press is partly free), frankly speaking, I cannot notice that we are much behind the neighbors. Certainly, my observation may be amateur, but at the moment, I, for example, don’t see that there is any restraint of expressing opposition opinions on any TV channel. You would say that it is because the Europeans’ pre-election monitoring. Certainly, it is, but during the 2008 presidential election, the same monitoring was carried out and during the “responsible” broadcasting, in the so-called “editorial reviews,” the opposition was labeled, assessed, including subjects related to the flag of Israel and Judeo-Masonry conspiracy. Yes, A1+ doesn’t broadcast via television now either and it is one of the biggest drawbacks of the current government. But it seems not fair to me not to notice certain “limited progress” (with the definition common in the West). By the way, that progress would be registered also by the fact that after the election, regardless of its outcome, those who make decisions would understand that it would not be the end of the world if oppositionists appeared on TV.

   

• Is There an Atmosphere of Fear?

  EditorialApril 26, 2012 12:50 1 comment

  Almost all opposition parties claim in the election campaign that the people are terrified. Yesterday that assessment was reiterated by Aram Sargsyan, the Democratic Party of Armenia (DPA) leader, explaining why the public opinion polls should not be trusted. If the matter is sociology itself, high-ranking companies ask “checking questions” during polls, in order to check the honesty of respondents.

  Certainly, one may doubt the quality of Gallup or the All-Russian Center for the Study of Public Opinion (VTsIOM), one may assume that these two sociological companies are bribed by the Armenian government. However, it seems to me that it is not very reasonable to put forward their data as a proof for the “atmosphere of fear.”

  Is there an atmosphere of fear in Armenia? In order to answer that question, one should decide whether there is really an autocratic regime in our country, as oppositionists sometimes claim? If yes, we live under the conditions of such a regime as is in North Korea or Turkmenistan, then, certainly, our people are also frightened and terrified and there is no institute of elections at all. Citizens have no opportunity – either real or virtual – to express their opinion and in this case, it is meaningless to conduct a public opinion poll.

   

• Not Only We Are Long-Suffering

  EditorialApril 24, 2012 12:37 7 comments

  When one calls himself a “long-suffering people,” one means first of all that his people differs from the others. I.e. there are peoples on the face of the earth that haven’t suffered, haven’t endured privations and haven’t been deported in the course of their history. According to that logic, there are peoples, the houses of which haven’t been intruded by enemies, their

  enemies haven’t killed unarmed people, haven’t raped women, haven’t burned and stolen their property. Has it happened only to Armenians? Is it our national feature? Probably, a slight difference is that not all went through that relatively recently, in the 20th century, and not all killers, burners and rapists so impertinently claim that they and their state haven’t committed any crime against Armenians, as the Turks do, and what is more, they call us, Armenians, the criminals.

   

• 5 Reasons for Absence

  EditorialApril 20, 2012 13:20 no comments

  The reason why the pre-election rallies of the ruling parties are relatively more crowded is obvious – the government has political leverage to make workers of the state institutions come to those meetings, it also has enough money to guarantee the “masses” by buses, if necessary. It is obvious that no one admires the government to come for no reason, “spontaneously.” When few people come to the same pre-election meetings that are organized by the opposition, the explanations may be different. Explanation no. 1: everyone has emigrated. By the way, about the numbers of emigration – the government and parties propagandizing its ideas claim that one and a half million people left Armenia in 1991-1998 (“in the Pan-Armenian National Movement (PANM) times”). The PANM and the forces supporting it, on the other hand, claim that one and a half million people have left Armenia in 1998-2012. If we subtract the sum of those two numbers from the “Communist” 3 million Armenians, it will be a mystery who lives in Armenia now.

   

• To Propose Mechanisms

  EditorialApril 12, 2012 13:18 no comments

  Every political force that starts an election campaign in Armenia faces certain dilemmas – for example, what is more important to present programs or to make a show? What language to speak with the voter strictly academic or the language used by a clamorous woman selling greens? Should one explain to the voter how good he is or how bad the rival is? It is really a serious dilemma, because presenting programs in the academic language is boring and uninteresting and to curse the opponent in the slang is quite the opposite. At the end of the day, certainly, one can combine those two approaches. The question, therefore, is to what extent.

  There is also another problem; since circa 1992 – i.e. 20 years ago – the opposition has been using the same assessments of the government in Armenia: “criminal regime,” “robbers,” “Mafiosi” etc. It is a different matter how such assessments are appropriate for a certain government, but one should pay attention to two facts – 1. Repetition may bore, 2. Nevertheless, the society has made certain civic progress for 20 years and the young part of it, in particular, can get more information than in 1990s.

   

• What Will Make Them Change?

  EditorialApril 6, 2012 12:23 2 comments

  A set of European foreign ministers that came to Armenia last week talked about the upcoming parliamentary election in this way or another and positively assessed the pre-election atmosphere created in our country. Generally the US Ambassador expressed his opinion in the same manner. Certainly, one can say that our establishment has managed to deceive them or that they are guided by the interests of their countries and want to “be deceived” – there is a grain of truth in those two claims. However, regardless of the level of our establishment’s cunningness, their commitment to hold a peaceful election without incidents is visible and probably the West points out that very thing. Certainly, those people that follow the internal political processes are not that naïve to believe that the election will be held without fraud (the “main weapon” here will probably be election bribe and tricks with voting lists). Let us also point out that “enema,” “pug dog,” “mooing cows,” “waste of the political stage” and other phrases like those are not voiced by the pro-government camp, which also has a positive impact on the overall atmosphere.

   
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  “The Choristers of the Establishment Have Started to Sing,” Petros Makeyan Says (Recording)

  FEATURED, PoliticalMarch 30, 2012 15:28 no comments

  Garnik Isagulyan, President Serzh Sargsyan’s permanent representative in the National Assembly, responding to the questions of journalists today, namely what he thought about the fact that people who had previously criticized the president of the country were on the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) list, advised to recall the speeches [...]

   

• Primitive Mistakes of “Strategists”

  EditorialMarch 24, 2012 12:39 no comments

  If one asked representatives of both the opposition and the establishment, they would say that they were great strategists of political and, in particular, pre-election struggle and that they knew all tactical nuances. However, it turns out that those unique “aces” don’t know not only “top class” tricks, but also don’t gather primitive information and summarize it. Moreover, I am talking about small Armenia, where everyone knows everyone, where there are only around 1900 polling stations and only 90 majoritarian and 41 proportional seats. How can one be unaware of another under such conditions? How can one otherwise explain that in 15 majoritarian electoral districts pro-government candidates and in 10 electoral districts opposition candidates will “fight” each other? Or that in each of no. 19 and 22 electoral districts 3 Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) members submitted their candidacies. Not to mention rivalry between the RPA and the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP) majoritarian candidates – as far as I remember, those parties have signed a coalition memorandum.

   

• The Anatomy of Propaganda

  EditorialMarch 22, 2012 12:45 no comments

  Before the presidential election in Russia, NTV had shown a movie that was called The Anatomy of  Protest and breaching professional and ethical standards of journalism, it just gabbled about people protesting against the rigged Duma election. Pickets have been organized recently against NTV, the participants in which condemned broadcasting [...]

   

• The Divine Creature

  EditorialMarch 14, 2012 13:00 no comments

  I have heard recently that the performance of one of the “elite” schools inYerevandedicated to the Armenian alphabet was delivered in a restaurant. Moreover, when one of the parents objected to such “elitism,” they explained to him that it was the principal’s order and then this parent became a “white crow” at that party. I don’t know what will remain in children’s memories – the alphabet invented by Mesrop Mashtots or the names of salads and hot dishes. Anyway, this merely gastronomic way of holding a festival and guaranteeing flashbulb memories for children is in line with today’s leading system of values. One shouldn’t listen to speakers at rallies or congresses for that, but parents collecting money for the performance and their children.

  In my childhood, a paper was pinned on the wall at the Housing and Communal Services office, which was called The Moral Code of Those Building Communism. It was clear for me as early as in 4th-5th grade (I think for millions of people too) that no Communism was being built in my country and those speculations were the same hypocrisy and pharisaism as the official speeches made today. However, there were written absolutely correct and acceptable things about honesty, kindness and mutual assistance of people in the main text of that Moral Code. Probably, the Communist ideology wanted to replace the Bible verities, as Robespierre first destroyed churches and monasteries and then invented some Divine Creature, understanding that the system of values needed a pillar. However, revolutionaries never understood that this pillar could be formed naturally, in the course of centuries.

   

• Post-Election Processes

  EditorialMarch 7, 2012 12:38 no comments

  Something that is usually called Post-Election Processes has started inRussia. People with opposition ideas gather in squares and express their protest against the election procedure and results – they are arrested, tried etc. The future developments can be different, depending on how inclined to shedding blood the establishment is and how adventurous the opposition is. Certainly, people have reasons for protest – in the CIS countries, establishments organize and hold elections and it is natural that they will do whatever it takes to reproduce themselves. Why should I organize something, which I will not “win?” In the European countries and the US, governments hold elections and it is neither an Avarayr nor a Sardarapat for anyone; it is an ordinary, commonplace process to elect a temporary administration and a temporary legislation body for 4-5 years. In this instance, when people take to the streets in Moscow and say that the election was rigged, they are only partially right. Because no one can say whether, for example, Zyuganov or Prokhorov really won and Putin was declared the president. It would be more correct to say that the election as such did not take place. When there is an absolute lord and master of the country who allows other candidates to aspire to the office of the president (and forbids some others), and those candidates know quite well that they will not achieve anything and citizens understand quite well who is the tsar that will not allow anyone to approach the throne, such an event cannot be called an election. Writer and publicist Viktor Shenderovich has found a more appropriate word for that “competition” – i.e. Paralympics – when healthy man has cut legs and hands of his rivals in advance.

   
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  Did the Armenians in the Russian Federation voted for Putin at the request of the Social Democrat Hunchakian Party (SDHP)?

  FEATURED, PoliticalMarch 5, 2012 16:03 no comments

  www.aravot.am inquired from Lyudmila Sargsyan, the SDHP chairman, whether the SDHP was satisfied with the results of the presidential election in the Russian Federation, since Vladimir Vladimirovich was the preferred candidate for the SDHP. Moreover, the SDHP members even called on our compatriots, citizens of the Russian Federation, to vote [...]

   
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  The “Funeral” of Medvedev’s Mediating Mission, According to Vahram Atanesyan

  FEATURED, PoliticalFebruary 28, 2012 17:10 no comments

  “As we know, officials in Baku have talked about ‘more active role of’ the EU more often and rather emotionally. In that sense, the part concerning the Karabkah issue in Conclusions on South Caucasus draft doesn’t meet the Azerbaijani expectations, at first sight,” Vahram Atanesyan, the head of the Nagorno-Karabakh [...]

   
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  Bleyan Has Had a Son

  News, PoliticalFebruary 22, 2012 14:51 no comments

  During a discussion on problems in the Khojalu events’ internationalization processes at Hayeli Club today, Ashot Bleyan, the principal of Mkhitar Sebastatsi Educational Complex, stated that he had had a son and said irritated that it was enough of speaking about genocides. “There is one topic in Armenia and Artsakh [...]

   

• Document Will Not Save

  EditorialFebruary 22, 2012 13:02 2 comments

  A few days ago, during a live TV show on one of the Russian TV channels, one of current and future President Putin’s proxies, former Minister of Emergency Situations Sergey Shoygu, presidential candidates Sergey Mironov and Mikhail Prokhorov, as well as representative of the League of Voters Leonid Parfyonov “unanimously voted” for signing an agreement on holding fair elections. The next day, pro-government political scientist Sergey Kurginyan really prepared such a document and Shoygu’s ministry invited all the candidates to come to their ministry and discuss the draft agreement. Candidates were naturally offended. Why should they come and discuss some text, when it is obvious that the “main candidate” will not come and discuss. In a nutshell, the draft “social agreement” survived only for two days and was not passed by anyone at all. Zyuganov said that such a document would be important, only if it was signed in Kremlin with participation of all candidates, including Putin.

  I think it will not be important even in that case. If you remember, before the 1998 presidential election in Armenia, a few candidates, including Robert Kocharyan, signed a similar agreement. However, the election that followed, in my opinion, was the least fair, since it was obvious that the majority of voters voted for Karen Demirchyan. (By the way, I was not among that majority; I voted against everyone). Therefore, both the speeches of a politician and the documents he signs are worthless in Armenia. At the end of the day, why should a person nominated illegally, who hadn’t lived in the country for 10 years, uphold some “gentlemen’s” agreements?

   
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  World Bank Supports Water Supply Improvement for 133,000 Residents inArmenia

  EconomyFebruary 22, 2012 12:11 no comments

  The World Bank’s Board of Executive Directors today approved a US$15 million loan for the Municipal Water Project for Armenia. The Project will support improvement of the quality and availability of water supply in selected service areas of the Armenian Water and Sewerage Company (AWSC). The activities proposed under the Project [...]

   

• No Hope for the “Non-Systemic” Opposition

  EditorialFebruary 21, 2012 12:55 no comments

  Lately I talked to Victor Shenderovich, a Russian writer and publicist, about the presidential election in theRussian Federationon March 4 at the P.S. TV show through Skype. You can see the video of that conversation for the first time on A1+ at 3:20 pm, today. Certainly, besides other questions, it was interesting to know about the candidates. Shenderovich, as I understood it, was not excited about anyone: Zyuganov and Zhirinovsky “have been working as opposition” for a long time and it is a beneficial job; Prokhorov is obviously Putin’s project; Mironov is not worth mentioning at all. And therefore, I inquired what he advised to the Russian voters. The advice was the following – to think and organize themselves, not bothering about the mentioned candidates.

  The situation inArmeniais like it, but it differs from it at the same time. In particular, Zyuganov has been saying “bandit regime” for 20 years, here the Armenian National Congress (ANC) has been saying that only for 5 years. So, there are still 15 years left for ours to bore the people with the repeating rhetoric. Both here and inRussiathere is a big inactive mass that will vote for the “nachalstvo” (bosses), however it is called, in any case without any pressure. In our two countries, the mechanism of election fraud is ready and waiting, moreover, inArmeniamany of architects and engineers of it are among the ANC. The broadcasting TV channels both inArmeniaand inRussiaare under establishment’s supervision, and my impression is that inRussia, that supervision over the so-called “federal” TV channels is more solid, than in our country. However, in both cases the internet has already become a serious alternative to TV broadcasting.