ArmInfo.On Sunday, the CEC summed up the official results of the early parliamentary elections in Armenia. Nikol Pashinyan's "Civil Contract" party gained 53.91%, Robert Kocharian's "Hayastan" bloc - 21.04% of the vote. The third force in parliament was the "I Have Honor" bloc with 5.23% of the vote. Of the registered 2 million 595,512 voters, 49.39% of voters voted. Thus, the "Civil Contract" party will be represented in the parliament of the 8th convocation by the 71 seats, the "Armenia" and "I Have Honor" blocs with 29 and 7 seats, respectively.
Expectations
Analyzing and drawing conclusions from such election results, first of all, it seems necessary to note their, to put it mildly, inconsistency with the mood prevailing in the Armenian post-war society. And in determining these sentiments, we will purposefully not rely on the "opinion polls" conducted in the country during the pre-election period by all kinds of "gallups". It's not a secret for anyone that the defeat of Armenia in the 44-day war with the Turkic world, the terms of the armistice following the results of this war and, most importantly, the unseemly role played in all this by Prime Minister Pashinyan, resulted in a catastrophic drop of his rating, personally as well as his party. Determining Kocharian and Sargsyan's real ratings, it seems necessary to emphasize that in conversations on the streets and in kitchens, the names of former presidents, as a rule, continue to be accompanied by the prefix "robbers". In fairness, it should also be emphasized that the same Pashinyan, on the eve of the elections, retained, especially in the villages and in the state apparatus, a loyal electorate of 25-30%. Kocharian and Sargsyan's real electorate consisted and still consists of their closest entourage and former state officials, who were deprived by Pashinyan in 2018 "from the food bowl." And, with all the understanding of the scale of corruption in pre-revolutionary Armenia, there could not be more than 8-10% of such people.
Paradoxes
It is clear that such a foreign policy and internal background of the election campaign quite naturally led to the formation of sentiments in the nth part of the Armenian society in the spirit of "neither exes and nor currents" and, accordingly, a request for a third, alternative force. However, as a result of the elections, we were faced with a paradox, when none of the 22, of course, conditional, alternative forces to these very former and incumbent forces entered into parliament. And the "current" and "former" ones entered the parliament. Another paradox is the formation of the parliament of the 8th convocation exclusively from pro-Russian forces. In any case, neither the Civil Contract, nor the Republicans, nor the Kocharyan force, either before, during or after the election campaign, were ever caught in anti-Russian sentiments, let alone statements. In contrast to the Republic party, the Shirinyan-Babajanyan bloc, Bever and other forces, who by the way, had very good pre-election chances.
In this light, it should be emphasized that the elections were held against the background of the hopeless growth of anti-Russian sentiments in the Armenian society. The reason for such tendencies was the rather ambiguous position and role of the Russian leadership in the days and, most importantly, in the formation of the results of last year's war in Artsakh. In this sense, the reaction, or rather the absence of Moscow's reaction to Yerevan's appeal to the CSTO for help, in connection with Azerbaijan's aggression against Armenia itself, did not add in this sense. It would seem that these circumstances should have persuaded, realizing the essence of what happened, a part of the Armenian society to vote "for" the anti-Russian forces. It is appropriate to state here that almost everyone understands the real reasons for the 44-day war in Armenia. But the results of the June 20 vote showed exactly the opposite:
Hammers, sickles and protest voting
Based on a number of parameters, first of all, it seems possible to state that the results of the elections, in general, reflected the real situation in the mood of the Armenian society and therefore are legitimate. And the elections, respectively, were democratically held. Yes, the election results, namely the high results of Pashinyan and Kocharyan himself, cause some surprise. However, on the whole, the reason for the huge gap between the "former" and the "current" with the rest of the political field in Armenia also lies on the surface. And they consist in the fact that, in at least one parameter, the elections of 2021 became a mirror image of almost all elections in the history of the Third Republic. As in the elections from 1996 to 2017, voting in these elections was also protest. On June 20, the bulk of the citizens who came to the polling stations voted not "for" but "against". In this particular case, against "defeatist - Pashinyan" and "robber - Kocharyan". Only the same 25-30% and 8-10%, respectively, voted for Pashinyan and Kocharyan. But by no means 54 and 21% of voters.
It should be especially noted that Nikol Pashinyan, Robert Kocharian and partly Serzh Sargsyan played a significant role in the formation of such a public discourse. From the very moment he came to power, Pashinyan never ceased dragging Kocharyan's scarecrow with him around the country, presenting him to society whenever he expressed doubts about his own infallibility. During the election campaign, Kocharyan's demonization reached its climax and was accompanied by a demonstration of the hammer and loud promises to smash the heads of all the "exes" without exception. Kocharyan waved a sickle in response, hinting at the castration of Pashinyan. Serzh Sargsyan's behavior during the election campaign seems to be the topic of a separate study of the world pillars in the field of neurolinguistics. Thus, Pashinyan and Kocharyan, as a result of this behavior, achieved the main thing - they instilled in the nth, let's say, not the most educated part of society a genuine horror towards each other. And, judging by the election results, Pashinyan, on the whole, did it much better than Kocharyan. It is very possible that a hammer helped him in this, and perhaps natural eloquence and an irresistible craving for populism.
Outcomes
From the very beginning of the idea of holding early parliamentary elections in post-war Armenia, your humble servant asserted the complete senselessness of this event. This was primarily due to the understanding that in the conditions of the next inevitable "protest vote", Pashinyan's power, one way or another, will remain afloat. In this particular case, it is no longer important through maintaining an absolute majority, gaining a constitutional majority, or even through a coalition with other forces. Even then, it was clear that as a result of elections in such conditions, young and not very Dashnaktsakans, dollar multimillionaires, former governors and former generals would come to replace the "prosperous" and "bright" lawmakers. What did all this give to society? The question is rhetorical and meaningless, but, nevertheless, it has an answer - absolutely nothing. In contrast to the ruling party and the "exes". The incumbent regime confirmed its legitimacy, the latter took a small but step towards their own long-awaited return. You and I had the opportunity to make a choice and see its embodiment, its real results in the prime minister's chair. It is even possible to feel the positive results of your own choice on your own skin. But you and I again succumbed to the tricks of propaganda, again became a victim of another substitution of the public agenda and again embarked on an inherently adventurous protest vote. In short, the results of the June 20 vote can be expressed in the immortal aphorism of Viktor Stepanovich Chernomyrdin " we wanted things to be better, but it still ended up 'like always'' .