After a long day and sleepless night, I return from Gyumri to Yerevan, and I want to briefly share some fresh observations. Avetik Chalabyan, co-founder of the "Hayaker" initiative, wrote about this on his page.
In particular, he noted.
"(A) The current government has focused on a huge resource in Gyumri to ensure its own victory, and almost no means to do so. Yesterday I witnessed the recurrence of any of the former vicious morals, many and various election violations, especially how to explain how in 2021. 7,800 voters were able to receive almost 17,000 votes yesterday.
(b) In addition, the opposition was able to organize an effective response with its work, receiving about 27,000 collective voters, and recording a confident victory. The fact that the opposition made various leaders was only an advantage, because the existence of different candidates, on the one hand, gives way to mobilize different layers of society, on the other hand, it complicates the power of power to blacken its opponents. By the way, there was no shortage of it, but the effectiveness was not the same, judging by the final result.
c) During the campaign preceding the voting, the current anti-propaganda continues to be openly violated against opponents, and it was not enough for its financial, propaganda and administrative resource to extort victory. There are many reasons for this (I will look in more detail in the future), but let us know that the legend of the government (any) invincibility in Armenia yesterday vanished, with its extremely far.
d) one of these reasons (although the only one) is the grown activity of civil society. Yesterday in all polling stations of Gyumri, our "Hayaken" worked in the same polling stations with members of a number of other monitoring organizations, members of the commissions, which performed their work on each ritual. Although yesterday's elections were far from being ideal, without those hundreds of active citizens, the picture would be much worse.
I will limit my brief observations with this. Many now are waiting for post-election developments, and it is worrying that the victory of the opposition is not done again. Before that, I congratulate the people of Gyumri before that I thank all those who were lucky enough to cooperate with this breakthrough and exciting days. "
