The Republican Party announced its decision not to participate in the NA elections, while expressing its readiness to contribute to the change of power and the victory of the opposition forces by all possible means. The RPA, among other means, undertook the task of organizing various actions on the days of the European Political Community Summit to be held in Yerevan in early May and the first European Union-Armenia summit.

The RPA’s position is not typical of ordinary pre-election realities, and has nothing to do with the electoral boycott. It fully corresponds to today’s non-standard situation in Armenia, in fact to ontological threats, which can no longer be faced with classical political tools, such as elections. The problem is not the approach of the party taken separately, but in a broader sense, the concept with which any political force treats the created situation.

Today, all forces actively participating in the elections are constantly announcing their chances of winning. This concept, which is completely normal for standard situations, should be completely different in the country, where the elections will not determine the arrangement of the parliamentary forces, but even the question of the existence of the state.

In these conditions, it is conceptually important to aim not for the partial victory of the opposition forces in the elections, but for the complete defeat of the government. This is not one of those cases where the former mechanically implies the latter. Simple mathematics and sociology do not work in such cases. The victories of the opposition forces, taken separately, even if impressive, without a 100 percent defeat of the government, will result in the victory of the same government, with some, at that moment, insignificant percentage.

This means that if the CP does not leave power and does not leave unconditionally, then it becomes completely secondary which of the opposition forces will get how many mandates in the future NA. At the moment, however, the election game is going in that direction. the opposition forces are counting their future mandates, the CP is counting the days until June 7 will arrive and the counting of the opposition will move to the polling station.

At the moment, only the RPA has made an offer opposing this scheme, along with the pre-election standard competition gaining momentum with the dominance of the Communist Party, offering a conditional street as the last chance for the complete defeat of the government. Moreover, the same RPA has been consistently promoting the “Impeachment” initiative since last year, which, along with the street struggle, can become a unique non-electoral chance for a change of power. The rest of the political field has not yet responded to the RPA’s proposal, at least at the institutional level, which makes us believe that for most of the oppositionists, however, what is important is their individual victory and not the complete defeat of power.

When the political forces choose the mandate in the dilemma of the mandate and the salvation of the state, the final victory of those who caused the imperative to save the state is recorded. Their ultimate victory is the ultimate defeat of the state, which, however, is of little concern to those for whom individual victories are important in total defeats.

 Harutyun Avetisyan

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