Yerevan, May 7, 2012 Today the name of the lucky customer who has received the 50,000th international call in the period of April 30 to May 6 was known. The lucky customer is Nver Mantashyan from Dilijan who received call from his sister living in Russia. He will [...]
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 [...]
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.
The European Union has decided to seriously deal with the South Caucasus. One can imagine why our three countries have been given such an “honor.” Events taking place in the Middle East, Russian, as well as those related toIrandrew the Europeans attention to our region. I don’t think that they have too many expectations from theSouth Caucasuscountries – the most the Europeans can expect is that we are predictable and comprehensible. This is the reason why 27 member-countries of the EU discussed the situation in the South Caucasus and adopted a document, the content of which will be known today.
The EU Foreign Minister Catherine Ashton, according to Radio Liberty, expressed “her deepest concern” (she said exactly so, reiterating that word twice) about what was going on inArmeniaandAzerbaijanconcerning the Karabakh issue.
The document to be adopted will probably mention the importance of letting EU officials to Nagorno-Karabakh without preconditions. What is behind that subtle diplomatic definition? The matter is that Azerbaijan claims that foreigners, in general and officials and politicians, in particular, should enter Nagorno-Karabakh only after getting their permission, otherwise, such an official can be declared persona non grata in the neighboring country. Probably the EU representatives want to annul the very precondition of getting permission.
Next Sunday, a presidential election will be held in Russia. Although the active, intellectual part of the country is deeply offended by the “exchange” of the prime minister and the president and the rigging of the parliamentary election, Putin will not have serious problems in the way to becoming the president. It is understandable that the prime minister of the Russian Federation has no serious, powerful rivals and will win the election in the first round. The state apparatus and big businesses will make all efforts to reach that aim. Holding the election in one round is necessary to further strengthen the verticality of power and to establish an atmosphere of self-assurance among the bureaucracy. The sentiments of that layer were best expressed by President of Tatarstan Rustam Minnikhanov, “Russia doesn’t need a manager; Russia needs a tsar.” It would me more logical if he said “sultan,” because if he is a mini khan in his republic, the sultan should rule over the whole empire. This is what “strong leader” phrase means – the tsar (sultan) decides who should become richer, who should remain poor, who should enjoy freedom and who should rotten in jail, who among his surroundings should become a vizier, who should be a khan and who should be an emir.
Yesterday the Russian communists signed an agreement with the League of Voters, a social group. According to the agreement, a joint database of trustworthy election reports will be created. A similar agreement was signed by the representatives of another opposition candidate, Mikhail Prokhorov. Since the opposition assumes not groundlessly that the election reports will be mostly falsified – i.e. there will be different results in ballot boxes and on ballots, as well as various other papers – they have decided to focus on that field. The NGO is actually a mediator between the billionaire and the communists, who at least state that they will strive for fair elections.
If it can be done in immenseRussia, technically it can be done much easier in smallArmenia. There are speculations that the establishment has half a million “reserve” votes – i.e. the establishment will attribute votes of the citizens that are not in the republic and those that will have not participated to itself. I don’t think half a million is not possible, but guess it is correct. 17 parties of the Armenian National Congress (ANC), as well as the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF), the Prosperous Armenia Party (PAP), the Heritage Party and the Free Democrats, state that they have thousands of members.
Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister of the Russian Federation, posted an article on his pre-election website, in which he directly blamed the West for importing democracy. It turns out that those who demand reforms and, in particular, fair elections in Russia are “unconstructive” forces and states that import democracy by means of force and military operations are objectively their allies. Besides, Putin mentions that democratic expectations are not met either and negative consequences of those processes are more. I.e. let me rule for another 12 years, if you don’t wantRussiato be like Libya and Egypt. Firstly, I cannot imagine that any external force tries to establish democracy inRussiamilitarily – it will result in a world war. Secondly, the West will never show such activity in the post-Soviet countries, if it doesn’t see that the majority of the society is mature enough for changes. On Sunday, for example, a parliamentary election took place inKazakhstan, as a result of which the ruling party, according to official results, won 80% of votes. The OSCE monitors stated that the election had not been democratic. The Europeans “will not interfere with the internal affairs” ofKazakhstanbeyond that statement. Because there are no influential forces in Kazakhstan that oppose Nazarbayev’s authoritarian regime not with words, but with deeds and offer the people clear and acceptable alternative.
We have informed that today in various cities around the world and all large cities of Russia, as outside the Russian embassy in Armenia a group of young people organized yet another protest against rigging the Russian State Duma election results with “Where is my vote?”, “No to falsification” posters. [...]
“Next year it is possible that only Russia out of the Minsk Group co-chair countries will change its position on the peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict”, said Richard Giragosian, the director of the Armenian Center for National and International Studies during a press conference at “Henaran” (support) club today. [...]
The latest election inRussiawas not worse than previous elections or similar events in other countries of CIS, includingArmenia. However, the fuss after the previous election (certainly, rigged again) is hundredfold bigger for three main reasons – first, the social conditions have become worse, second, internet was not so developed 4-5 years ago and as a result there was no alternative to the television under pressure from above, third, the relations between Russia and the USA were not so tense at the time. Are these two factors alarming forRussia? Not yet. However, one cannot help but take that into account in the future. Furthermore, we should take that into account both in the context of our upcoming parliamentary election and the very Russian events.
Today, on the day of the election for the Russian State Duma, massive arrests were made in downtownMoscow. The Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs informed about 12 arrests. According to Interfax, the arrestees tried to disturb public order and spread leaflets urging “Unlawful election is being held”. According to the [...]
