Friday, April 2 2021 16:14

ArmInfo.The parliamentary opposition's disagreement with the reform of the Electoral Code is by no means surprising - the absence of state thinking in Armenia is by  no means new. A similar opinion was expressed to ArmInfo by one of  the leaders of the social-democratic party "Citizen's Decision"  Garegin Miskaryan.

"We all know perfectly well that state interests in our country have  always been sacrificed to the interests of the party, that is, purely  narrow-group interests. And the behavior of the opposition during  voting in parliament is another confirmation of this thesis. And here  the problem is by no means limited to the parliamentary opposition. I  know that there are supporters of the rating system even within the  "My Step" bloc, "he stressed.

On April 1, the National Assembly of Armenia, in the second and final  reading, with 82 votes in favor, approved amendments to the Electoral  Code, suggesting the rejection of the "rating" system. Thus, from now  on, elections will be held only on party lists. At the same time, the  planned change in the threshold for entering parliament for parties  from 5 to 4%, and for blocks of two, three and four parties, from  seven to eight nine and ten percent, respectively, was not included  in the EC.  In general, the politician sees the need for a generation  change in the country's political field. In his words, it is the  long-term absence of such a culture in Armenia, among other things,  that is the reason for monopolization, the absence of competitive  conditions in the political field of the country. At the same time,  Miskaryan expressed his conviction in the impossibility of changing  the situation, the appearance of new faces in Armenian politics, new  political forces with a new culture, especially new ideas through  changes in one law. According to the politician, today Armenia, the  people, the nation feel the need to formulate, clarify the national  idea - a vision of its own future and ways to achieve it. In his  opinion, the National Assembly, especially one political party, has  no power to solve this problem. In this light, the quality of the  future parliament is, of course, important, however, one should not  expect revolutionary approaches from it in the direction of solving  such problems.  "Amendments to the Electoral Code are undoubtedly an  important component of the politicization of Armenian politics. This  is a small step, an impulse towards the readiness of the Armenian  political forces to take this path. As for our participation in the  upcoming elections, there is still no final decision on the format of  this participation. For us, the formation of a bloc with other  political forces on the basis of ideas and values is fundamental. And  so far we do not see such forces, "the politician summed up.