Monday, June 21 2021 11:17

ArmInfo. It is difficult to win the future with the help of the past.

This opinion was expressed by Sergey Markedonov , a leading  researcher at the Euro-Atlantic Security Center of the MGIMO  Institute for International Studies, referring to the results of the  early elections in Armenia.

He recalled that back in February he wrote that several months of  protest activity in Armenia showed that there is a certain deficit  with real alternatives to Nikol Pashinyan. The expert believes that  even a defeat in Karabakh does not produce a knockout effect.

"There is an understanding in Armenian society that, despite all the  blunders and mistakes of Pashinyan and the current government, the  legends of the past (without any irony) do not have the resources to  break the current geopolitical status quo. Today, there are no external  interested parties for new early elections in Armenia. Thus, Vladimir  Putin has repeatedly expressed himself in the spirit that populist  criticism of Pashinyan from "patriotic positions" will not help  either the Karabakh settlement, nor the situation in the Caucasus as  a whole, nor the situation in Armenia, " says the Russian political  scientist.  At the same time, Markedonov added that back in March  2021, he spent several days in Yerevan and saw the closed Baghramyan  Avenue (especially for mass rallies), but there were no rallies  themselves, a group of ten people lazily moved from tent to tent. 

"And therefore, at the end of March 2021, I recorded:" However, the  weakest side of the opposition today is its fragmentation, the  prevalence of personal ambitions over strategy and the lack of a  systemic vision of the post-Karabakh situation. And at that time I  proposed "to conduct a series of applied sociological studies on the  real influence of the Karabakh factor on the formation of priorities  of Armenian public opinion. It is possible that the key importance of  the struggle for Karabakh in society will decrease in comparison with  the 1990s and early 2000s," he noted.  

"Actually, the results are on the scoreboard. Pashinyan won.  Honestly, I did not expect that he will win with such a result: not  70, as in 2018, but about 54%. I thought that there would be about  35%, but Kocharyan's votes about 15-18%, in the end he received 21%.   Lesson one, and the most important one: It is difficult to win the  future with the help of the past," Markedonov summed up.  

The CEC has compiled data from all 2008 polling stations in Armenia.  Three political forces have secured serious support from citizens: -  The Civil Contract Party (53.9%) - The Armenia Bloc (21%) - I Have  the Honor! (5.2%). - "Prosperous Armenia" party received 3.9% of  votes. The rest of the political forces together collected only  15.7%.  To note, the party led by Nikol Pashinyan  won in all regions of Armenia, including Syunik and Yerevan.