BAKO SAHAKYAN, FACEBOOK AND BLACK PR
Naira Hayrumyan
Story from Lragir.am News:
Published: 15:37:22 – 17/07/2012
Today is the last day of the presidential election campaign in
Karabakh. Tomorrow is the silence day, the day after tomorrow, on July
19, the people of Karabakh will vote for president. The favorites are
the incumbent president Bako Sahakyan and the retired general Member
of Parliament Vitali Balasanyan.
The current presidential campaign in Artsakh has had a lot of
particularities. First of all, as it was found out, there is opposition
in the country. Masis Mayilyan and Eduard Aghabekyan joined Vitalis
Balasanyan, who is a retired general who didn’t enrich on account
of the post-soviet “privatization”. The diplomatic experience of
Masis Mayilyan, Eduard Aghabekyan’s democratic election and Vitali
Balasanyan’s positive image have led to the situation when his
candidacy is seen as a real alternative to the acting president and
his administrative system.
The second particularity of this election campaign is the active
use of the social nets. First, Vitali Balasanyan opened an account
on Facebook, which enabled him to propagate his ideas and to reveal
breaches. Then, Bako Sahakyan opened an account, which was later
closed. Large groups for Karabakh were established which announced
themselves as Bako Sahakyan’s supporters and had aggressive positions.
The psychological characteristics of the campaign started showing up
in these groups. First of all, Sahakyan’s supporters had waited but
ever saw black PR against their candidate. They saw no kind of PR:
even the Karabakh parliamentary groups, which stated about their
support to Bako Sahakyan, didn’t bring weighty grounds for their
decision. The only argument they brought was that Bako Sahakyan needs
to continue the already started plans.
Apparently, whole teams were prepared to deal with the “black PR”
but its absence has led to the acceptance of any mention of Bako
Sahakyan as Black PR, and the entire team of Artsakh Facebook of
defenders of Sahakyan raised a storm in one glass of water.
The last “touch” of Bako Sahakyan’s campaign was his meeting with the
famous businessman-philanthropist Levon Hayrapetyan. At the beginning
of the campaign sounded a hint that Levon Hayrapetyan supports Vitaly
Balasanyan, and the meeting with him, apparently, was to make it
clear that Hayrapetyan will be on the side of Bako Sahakyan.
However, the lack of arguments by the end of the election campaign
becomes more natural. It came to the point that sociologist Aharon
Adibekyan was even used who “destroyed” Vitali Balasanyan. Adibekyan’s
moral image can hardly be called flawless, but his support to Bako
Sahakyan proved the weakness of the arguments of the latter.
Nevertheless, Vitali Balasanyan’s nomination and the active campaign
have done the most important thing: they stirred up the almost sunken
into a coma Karabakh society, removed from the glasses of people and
forced them to see the reality in its color. That’s what was missing
in Karabakh: during the 5 years of tenure of President Bako Sahakyan,
the principle of consolidation against the real and virtual enemy made
Karabakh indifferent to the common destiny. Everyone was satisfied
with his little “stable” world, closing their ears and eyes.
Sure, the active election campaign and the probably second round
may change the relation of the world and the international community
to the democracy in Karabakh. After all, the active fight is a sign
that the “client is alive”. In this sense, Karabakh has already shown
it viability.
From: A. Papazian
http://www.lragir.am/engsrc/country26875.html