Forecast: Consequences of the choice between bad and worst will  affect Armenia for a very long time

ArmInfo. Having made the choice between the bad and the worst in the early parliamentary elections in June, limited by two political forces, the Armenian  voter drove himself into a dead end with his own hand. A similar  opinion was expressed to ArmInfo by public and political figure Suren  Sahakyan.

"To our great regret, the results of these elections already have and  will have negative consequences that our citizens will feel for a  very long time. Among such consequences, I would especially highlight  the reformatting of the political field, which has already led to the  appearance of even worse content on it. And we see that the same  style of behavior of the ruling force at the current local elections  has already made the political field even more chaotic, "he said.

The latter, in Sahakyan's opinion, is expressed in the replacement of  pre-revolutionary theses about political struggle on an ideological  basis with practice from the recent past: abuse of administrative  resources, patronage, pressure on the opposition by the hands of law  enforcement officers, "explanatory work" for the police, and the  formation of an atmosphere of fear. He also noted that all these  measures of the candidates of the "Civil Contract" party in the local  elections, of course, are bypassed. The politician assesses these  tendencies as very disturbing and not leading to anything good.

Commenting on the results of local elections held on Sunday in a  number of communities, Sahakyan noted the differences in the  electoral behavior of voters in local and national elections. In his  opinion, in local elections, in particular, people do not elect a  party, but a specific person - a candidate for the post of head of  the community, and the party here fades into the background.  Meanwhile, trust in the ruling Civil Contract party, in his opinion,  has significantly decreased and continues to decline.

"Of course, all this does not mean at all that if the parliamentary  elections are held next week, their results will differ significantly  from the results of the June elections. Especially if the elections  are again based on manipulations around the images of an external and  internal enemy performed by the ruling party. The whole question is  what, in fact, our citizens can get from such elections, in addition  to the next deepening of watersheds and trenches within society, as  well as gaining permissiveness by some criminal elements, reducing  political discussion to the level of "hero - capitulant" and, of  course, further deepening of the current uncertainty. All this  together leads to even greater disorientation, loss of criteria for  assessing the situation, the formation of people's disappointment  with politics, in general, and from politicians, in particular. And  as a result - intentions to vote with their feet, "Sahakyan summed  up.  It should be reminded that according to the preliminary results  of the elections to local government bodies held on November 14 in a  number of communities of the country, published by the Central  Election Commission of Armenia, the "Shant" bloc headed by the leader  of the community Gevorg Parsyan won the elections in Kapan. Of the  20,086 voters who took part in the elections, 13,962 voted for  "Shant", the ruling Civil Contract party received 5,791 votes. At the  elections in Ijevan, out of 12,383 voters, 10,003 voted for the  "Civil Contract", the list of which was headed by current leader of  the community, Artur Chagaryan.  The ARF received 1,964 votes. In  Stepanavan, the ruling party represented by the incumbent mayor Armen  Grigoryan also won, gaining 4,004 votes.