“The public must take to the streets by boycotting the referendum” (video)
In 24-year-old Republic of Armenia the votes and referendums have always given the results desired by the authorities. Political analyst Stepan Danielyan says: “I don’t think that it is possible to change the situation in Armenia through elections and referendums. The public shouldn’t take part in the referendum and should take to the streets so that the events, which are called an election or referendum, will fail.” According to Mr. Danielyan, the constitutional authorities want to do something else under the guise of reforms: “The intention is to create a system, through which to continue controlling the government, and here the matter is a specific person- Serzh Sargsyan and his narrow team.” But why should the people, who have consolidated around different opposition leaders for years and have never gained victory, take to the streets this time? “You won’t pass” initiative’s member Armen Grigoryan notes: “Here the greatest advantage is that there is no candidate, that everybody will work for “No” and everybody will put his resources for “no”. On the other hand the greatest disadvantage is the connection with the candidate, namely Serzh Sargsyan, and we all know the attitude towards Serzh Sargsyan.” Do the forces, which don’t struggle actively against the Constitution, bring grist to the mill of the authorities? “We should struggle actively, otherwise it is the same, in 1988 we told the people to go home, as we don’t have army in Karabakh war, we aren’t ready.” The persistent desire of the authorities to fix in the new draft Constitution the provisions on holding the second round of the parliamentary elections and forming a stable majority isn’t acceptable for human rights defender Avetik Ishkhanyan. “Artificial stability may be more dangerous and I am much concerned that the article will give us pseudo-parliamentary system instead of the parliamentary system,” he notes. Human rights defender Arthur Sakunts points out the incomplete mechanisms of human rights defense in the draft Constitution. “Not only the fact of human rights violation is disturbing, but also the possibility of restoration of violated rights, possibilities of preventing the violations, which have a fundamental importance in any legal and constitutional act.” Arthur Sakunts thinks that the distrust towards the authorities becomes deeper when the state officials don’t take part in the public discussions on the constitutional amendments.
