Sunday’s article about the elections, written by public and political figure and coordinator of the “Artun Enk” movement, Narek Malyan.
“1,280,000 voters participated in the 2021 elections, representing 48% of eligible voters.
I predict that turnout in the upcoming elections will decline to around 35%. This is the result of electoral demotivation. Unfortunately, the majority of demotivated voters are opposition voters.
The reasons for this demotivation are well known:
The legend of the government’s invincibility. Demonstrative support for the government by external forces, a parade of blatant violations of the law within the country.
The inaction of the favored opposition. In 2021, the favored opposition force, which announced Nikol’s final days with Facebook posts reading “12 days left” and deceived the public with the slogan “we can endure this,” has accomplished no useful work in five years. Moreover, to conceal its own idleness, visiting political prisoners in prisons as an activity recently morphed into dividing political prisoners into “mine and yours.” And the pathetic and empty speeches of favored opposition figures in the National Assembly hall usually ended with public physical punishment and insults directed at them.
A buildup of strength over the past five years in power. In 2021, Nikol has just emerged from his bunker. Today, he is waging a campaign against the church. Five years ago, his goal was to win over voters. Today, the government sees no problem in taking voters’ opinions into account.
Fragmentation of the opposition field. The split in the opposition, sowed by Robert Kocharyan, is the result of idleness, explaining away one’s own failures and defeats with conspiracy theories. It’s no secret anymore that Kocharyan maintains a battalion of slanderous old women, whom he “fuels” against all his opponents whenever necessary. Of course, Robert Kocharyan’s attacks on the opposition are no longer effective, but as a result, the opposition is divided, and unity is necessary for “capturing” it. A voter at the polling station.
Manifestations of a two-sided lie. Over the past five years, both the government and the beloved opposition have openly and shamelessly lied. The “we will win” lie during the war and the fanatical marches organized by the Kocharyans had the same effect on the population: disillusionment. This is precisely why I advise the “Our Way” movement to stay away from the former deputies of the 8th National Assembly and not join their political team. A disheartened opposition voter who doesn’t go to the polls punishes the political forces that have deceived them for the past five years with their “boycott.” As a result, the current frontrunner in the 2021 elections, the Armenia bloc, doesn’t even pass the voting threshold and becomes one of those “vote-scatterers,” as they call it.