During the elections of local self-governing bodies held in Artsakh on September 8, an important circumstance emerged, which is worth addressing in detail. The political transformations that took place in Armenia, as it can already be argued, noticeably changed the logic of internal political processes in Artsakh. The machine of more than two decades of focused voter influence has failed. Many observers note that for the first time people were given the opportunity to make free choices. None of the previous factors to capture the will of the majority of voters was found to be effective. Not pro-government neither the parties nor the bureaucratic class became the “heroes” of these elections. And the fact that in one of the communities – Kovsakan, the voters raised their voice of protest en masse against the announced results of the elections, shows even more clearly that this time it was only the voters who decided the fate of the elections.
Times have obviously changed. From the beginning, it was clear that for the political forces of Artsakh, these elections will be a gauge of public sentiments, targeting the presidential and parliamentary elections to be held next year. This can explain the fact that none of the existing parties nominated their candidates for key positions in Stepanakert and regional centers. No one wanted the defeat of their candidate, because it would mean that this or that party has no influence on voters. Preference was given to the shadow of self-nominated people with authority in society support tactics.
However, the situation in the elections turned out to be more complicated than expected. No one managed to hide behind independent candidates. The voters caught themselves completely off guard. Despite the fact that practically every candidate was labeled as “man of so-and-so”, “man of so-and-so”, “man of the authorities” and other such labels, the society treated it with disdain. Personal choice played an excellent role, which is already clear from the percentage of votes cast in favor of each candidate. This was evident from the results of the voting in Stepanakert, where none of the candidates received the “breaking package” of votes. And just the fact that the law does not provide for a second round of voting, giving one of the candidates a chance to win with the minimum number of votes.
Thus, according to preliminary data, Davit Sargsyan, a non-partisan businessman who won in Stepanakert, received 7,787 votes, warehouse officer Grigori Sahakyan, who placed second, received 4,765 votes, Areg Avagyan, who came in third place, received 3,125 votes. Even Armen Hakobyan, who currently holds the position of deputy mayor, received only 3059 votes, and Araik Avanesyan, who recorded the lowest result, collected 2108 votes. Taking into account that 21,543 voters participated in the voting in Stepanakert out of 39,000 registered voters, victory could be ensured by receiving the votes of only one fifth of the voters. As we can see, none of the candidates for the capital of Artsakh did not have a serious impact on the opinion of the majority of residents. Almost half of the voters simply showed no interest in the elections.
Voting results in some regional centers also convince that the factor of administrative resources and the factor of parties did not have a significant impact on the mood of the voters. In many polling stations, preference was given to non-partisan self-nominations.
We can only hope that no one will be able to turn back the wheel of the described positive process.
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