They cannot force out each other from the region.

To the questions on the recent Armenian-Turkish developments, answers the director of the A.D.Sakharov Armenian Human Rights Centre LEVON NERSISYAN.

- Do the protocols signed in Zurich correspond to our national interests or that is the vice verse, and they are a threat for the Armenian identity and the National security of Armenia as the new and old opposition claim?

- I would not put the question that way. Diplomacy is not a match with a known result: diplomacy is a game, where each player strives to bring his losses to the minimum and take the maximum of the game. This means, it’s not that we signed the protocols and that is all, we can wash our hands and stand aside. It’s never put that way in diplomacy. >>>>

by Levon Nersisyan

The newest era of the country’s public-political development provided for unlimited opportunities for a definite range of our compatriots “advanced in the path of global liberalization” to realize V.I. Lenin’s postulate “about the opportunity for any cook to govern the state” on own example.

That is a strange but a fact that an average national voter, normally, does not care about the educational level of the candidates, their merit before the country and the society, and the same with their labor records or career path.

As a rule, the majority of candidates turn the election campaigns of any level to multiple repetitions of various variations of the word combinations “democracy, civil society and human rights” and to populistic (in some cases vulgar) reproaches on the authorities and unrealistic promises. >>>>

However regrettable to say, public-social improvements in the Republic are hindered not only the fighting part of the opposition, but also a layer of conservative bureaucrats, which under the “shadow” of evolving dynamic activities, work for their own interests.

In the elite of the authority structures of our dear motherland, they do not understand, or do not wish to understand, that domestic life of a country is commonly regulated not only by a wise vice-president and a number of ministers and regional governors like him, but also officials and executives of diverse calibers, which with their actions create such a public-social situation that results in alienation of major part of the population creating an atmosphere of distrust towards state structures. >>>>

Comparative analysis of the results of the parliamentary elections (May 12, 2007) and the results of the presidential election (February 19, 2008) makes it possible to define (with definite confidence) the orientation of the nation’s social-political vector.

Preconditions supporting the present analysis:

1.     The space of time (nine months) between the mentioned election campaigns was practically insignificant and the general background of the public-political situation during the mentioned period had not endured any cataclysms.

2.      As a rule, the public-political component of the domestic voter's mentality identifies any political movement with the persona of the leader of that movement. >>>>

The Presidential elections finished. That was expectedthat after “election battles” the society would return to its everyday life. Serious ground for such assumptions was the positive assessments of international observers, opinions of which are “an ultimate truth” for people here and abroad.

That is not a secret that in very seldom cases on the post-soviet territory the opinion of the “guards of Western standards of democracy” concur with the opinion of the representatives of East-Asian society, which defend the principles of national identity from the total globalization of moral standards. 

However, for the entire society of the Republic the electoral “trials” were flowerets only - the berries were to come yet, since the final act was being prepared with an enviable persistence not only in the “national political kitchen” but also out of its borders. >>>>

I.       Power and Big Business

Though the representatives of three Armenian political parties (viz. “Republic”, “Orinatz Yerkirh” and ARFD) managed to form a pro-presidential majority in the Armenian Parliament (with the direct assistance of the RA President) they failed to put an end to sharing in the intrigues against each other and making conflicts of their ambitions raised since the past election campaign because each of those political forces knew “the worth” of deputy mandates to have been got by their colleagues of political coalition.

The confrontation between the coalition members became even more strained in the course of parity distribution of “Ministers’ portfolios” and high official posts. Before the RA Government was formed the coalition leaders had declared their parties to be responsible for the performance of the RA Government as a whole, but after the posts had been distributed all of them decided to reduce their responsibility to the duties within their “Ministers’ portfolios”. And public, social and economic spheres of life in the Republic of Armenia have become the base of struggle again.  >>>>

The de jure elections of “the people’s elects to the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia are to be held in the spring of 2007 (the exact date of the forthcoming elections has not been formally announced yet), but one can say with confidence that most of the seats (131 in number) in the Armenian Parliament have already been assigned de facto.

How could it happen?

When making an attempt to comprehend or, at least, to approach the above matter every actor’s role and part in such an all-Armenian event should be evaluated. >>>>

I.      Politics (Power Formation)

There are 60 actual political parties or blocks in the political arena of Armenia now whereas 114 parties had acted before the RA Law on Parties was passed in July of 2002.

The Law on Parties was adopted in anticipation of the Presidential Elections in March of 2003 and the Parliamentary Elections in May of 2003 to regulate the formation process in the political field of the country.

The conceptual slogans which were brought forward by all the political actors during the past election campaigns turned out to be the same in the general (as a rule, most of political parties have no own programmes).  >>>>

May 12, 2007 became a final point for the many-month election campaign carried on for 131 seats at the RA Parliament.

The Article “Towards the ‘Passed’ RA National Assembly Elections” has been written in October 2006, and in this connection, that would be reasonable to evaluate it against the actual results of the elections.

In October 2006, the RA Parliament of 3^rd convocation had not started yet to discuss as a whole new redaction of the Electoral Code. In the lobby of the Parliament and within the wide range of national public-political elite there were hot debates underway round the subject of disfranchisement of the majoritarians’ deputy mandates.

As a result, everything fell back into place – What is God’s, give to God and what is Caesar’s give to the Caesar: 90 deputy seats at the National Assembly went to the party “individualists” united in political parties and 41 deputy seat mandates to the majoritarians. >>>>

Results of the elections of deputies to the fourth convocation of the National Assembly (May 2007) revealed the qualitative alterations taken place in the society in comparison with the situation we had at the beginning of 90’s.

That would be extremely simplistic explaining the changes occurred with a total use of “dirty technologies” and with the psychological pressure on wide layers of society exercised  by the powers in rule during the election campaign (as it was voiced within certain radically disposed circles).

If to take into consideration that the definite part of the “opposition” as well has not been upright and at places employed the clannish-tribal and semi-criminal powers to have influence on the electorate, than the following questions become reasonable:  >>>>