"Fact" daily writes:
In different periods, and even more so before the parliamentary elections, the current authorities, led by Nikol Pashinyan, regularly order different polls in order to assess their possibilities before the elections. Moreover, those results of the survey are exclusively for internal use and are carried out both by 1-2 specific sociological organizations, and especially by the divisions of the National Security Service.
If the results of these surveys are somehow encouraging for the authorities, they are traditionally distributed in the form of "plums" on various platforms. But it has been a long time since the Pashinyan government has not released the results of any survey. The point is that there is nothing to "publish". in particular, according to our sources in the CP, several recent polls have caused an extremely pessimistic mood within the government. Basically, on the one hand, the rating of Nikol Pashinyan and his CP is in an extremely "sad state", on the other hand, the forces with a chance to pass the National Assembly are a small number, and there is no party close to Pashinyan among them. Instead, the main opposition forces entering the parliament can get almost twice as many votes from Nikol Pashinyan's "Civil Pact" and as a result deprive Pashinyan of power without serious resistance.
Accordingly, the current authorities have decided to implement the so-called "western" scenario, which has already been tried. Excited by the "Moldovan scenario", Pashinyan has taken a much more serious and dangerous game in Armenia to implement the "Armenianized" version of that scenario, using for this the changes implemented in the Electoral Code and the Criminal Code in 2021, which give serious "loopholes" to the CP to deprive the opposition forces of the opportunity to participate in the elections.
To remind, on February 6, President Vahagn Khachaturyan signed a decree on scheduling the regular elections of the National Assembly on June 7.
On the very next day, the order came into force and as a result, the most important changes in the electoral process began to be applied by force of law, one of which is the first part of Article 19, Clause 6 of the Election Code. It prohibits the parties participating in the elections, personally or on their behalf or in any other way, to give or promise money, food, goods or provide/promise services to the voters during pre-election campaigning, before and on the day of voting.
Charitable organizations, whose names may be similar to the names of parties participating in the elections, cannot carry out charity during pre-election campaigns, and if such information appears, the participation of any party may be prohibited by the court. By the way, in that regard, the Anti-Corruption Committee even issued a special statement, warning that this may also lead to criminal liability. This legal regulation was adopted back in 2021, one month before the special elections, but it was not implemented then.
Now the Pashinyan government has decided to fully use this, and at the same time, to create such an impression that the opposition forces are trying to do charity and on that basis simply deprive the key oppositionists of the opportunity to participate in the elections. It is true that the points of the above changes will concern the authorities themselves, who will use all the government resources to make promises and "do good" to the people, but they will try to use it as a club against the opposition itself, despite the fact that the main opposition parties have always implemented various charitable programs, regardless of whether there is an election ahead or not.
