THE TIME OF RECKONING: THOUGHTS ON THE YEREVAN MUNICIPAL ELECTIONS
Monday, May 6th, 2013
BY MARIA TITIZIAN
It’s time to take away the levers of their perceived power. It is
time to eradicate the uneducated, morally bankrupt, economically
powerful, groveling, sniveling mob of young men and boys and silly,
vacuous girls who think they will determine the destiny of my country.
I’m done with being politically and socially correct. I’m done with
the dim-witted and brainless little boys dressed in black who hang
out on street corners with their thick necks and shaved and empty
heads bullying and terrorizing everybody from residents to the police
force. I’m done with thinking that democracy is a process which we
must go through to get to where we want to end up because nobody
knows the end game.
I’m done with your cheap fireworks and even cheaper dress code.
I’m done with your chalaghaj and your khorovadz and your
stomach-churning oghi. I’m done with your bravado and threatening
words against those who you perceive to be weaker than you. I’m also
done with those who have left and those who now, more than ever want
to leave.
Yesterday I had to bear witness, yet again to a process that brought
shame on me as a human being, as a mother and as an Armenian woman. I
always keep naively hoping that with each election cycle we are moving
closer to democracy and yet with each election we seem to be slipping
further and further into the “mud.”
I was a proxy at two different electoral precincts, 4/28 and 4/30
both in the Arabkir district of Yerevan where I live for the Yerevan
city elections. Before taking on that duty, I went to cast my vote.
When I arrived at my polling station there was a long line-up of
people waiting to vote. That might have been a normal occurrence
however it was the group of young men hanging outside the building
that annoyed me. I had woken up in a fighting mood anyway and seeing
them standing there with their cigarettes dangling out of the corner
of their mouths, their iPhones in hand, slumping over each other,
acting like silly little brats and watching people as they entered
and left certainly set the mood for the rest of my day.
At the first polling station (4/28) where I was a proxy there were
long line-ups of voters pushing and shoving their way in. At times
it was chaotic and for the three hours I was there until my next
posting it was a constant flow of people being led by Republican party
apparatchiks who were there acting as a commission member, proxy and
observer not to mention the Republican thugs who were congregated
outside in groups. The air inside was stifling as the number of
voters kept swelling. I went outside to see what was going on and
was confronted with an incredible amount of cars and vans. There were
several police officers on hand purportedly to ensure that everything
was going smoothly. I approached one of the police officers and asked
him if there was another polling station in the vicinity because it
didn’t make sense to have all this traffic for one station. As I was
asking, another more senior police officer went on the defensive and
demanded to know why I was even asking the question. I told him the
number of vehicles didn’t make sense when the polling station was
in the middle of a cluster of buildings where all voters needed to
do was walk and he said, “Do you not think we are doing our job? We
know what our job is.” I said you clearly know your job because you
are not doing anything to prevent this circus from taking place and
stormed back into the polling station.
Two specific incidents at 4/28 are worth mentioning. The first was
a young man, not more than twenty, who tried to vote with a passport
which stated he was born in 1959. One of the commission members was
astute enough to notice and quickly called the rest of us over at
which time the alleged 54 year old attempted to exit the polling
station. His passport details were recorded and a complaint was filed.
Another incident was with another young man who apparently had three
grandmothers (he kept escorting one elderly woman after another
claiming they were his “dadiks.”) He too was escorted out of the
station and another complaint against him was filed. These are only
two cases of a continual attempt all day long at all polling stations
to use any lever possible to swell Republican Party votes.
When I arrived at precinct 4/30 it was comparatively calm. However,
ten minutes before the polls closed all mayhem broke loose as a group
of about 25-30 men stormed the polling station and began to create a
ruckus over an elderly woman who was demanding to be photographed and
who was obviously sent in a few minutes earlier as a decoy so that
they could stuff the ballot box. Some of us proxies and observers
tried to protect the box while filming the idiocy unfolding before
us. The chair of the commission lost all control of the situation
until another man (with a very thick neck) stormed in demanding to
know what was going on.
Who that man was remains a mystery. In the middle of the commotion
was the Republican and Prosperous Armenia party proxies – it wasn’t
clear to me whether they were further instigating the mob or trying to
contain it. Once calm was restored and the doors locked with us inside,
it took the chair and secretary of the commission a whole hour to go
through the process of preparing everything for the ballot box to be
opened. Once opened and the counting begun, several destroyed ballots
were brought out which created yet another storm of controversy among
the Republican Party proxy and the Prosperous Armenia observer to
determine what constituted a destroyed ballot. A fist fight almost
broke out with chairs being whipped across the room. And then calm
was suddenly restored again.
At this point, my nerves and patience were very quickly disintegrating
and I thought I was going to have a stroke. The RPA proxy had managed
to be drinking throughout the day and approached me stinking of alcohol
wanting to see the video footage I had taken of his dismal behavior
earlier when he was about to break another man’s jaw over a destroyed
ballot. When I refused he kept finding an excuse to approach me as the
ballots were being counted, asking my name, where I was from until I
told him to be careful because he didn’t know who he was dealing with
and there would be irreversible consequences for him if he continued
trying to engage me. He walked away with his tail between his legs
and left me alone.
For all my own bravado, I was literally shaking.
Once the ballots were finally counted with the RPA getting about 60
percent of the vote in my precinct, I asked the commission chair to
unlock the door so that I could get out. I was done. I walked out into
the clear night trying to breathe in some air only to be confronted
by gangs of Republican Party bullies who had been hanging around the
polling station waiting for their victory to be heralded.
My husband quickly pulled up, picked me up and drove me home. On the
drive I couldn’t talk, I was heartbroken, disgusted, disillusioned
and felt dirty. And then the fireworks began all over the city…they
couldn’t wait to celebrate their deepening grip on power.
After 12 years of believing, hoping, praying that we would be able to
embark on the road toward democracy, I have come to the conclusion
that while trying to stay the course, you sometimes need to fight
like a bulldog, unyielding and be prepared to struggle till the end
of your last breath.
Of one thing I am sure, those small-minded, power-hungry thugs with
their minions who conduct themselves with disgrace will answer to
all of us when we refuse to do their bidding, there just needs to be
more of us to shift the balance of power away from the darkness and
toward the light. I believe that this regime will collapse only when
the rest of us can come to our senses by taking away their power.
From: A. Papazian