Political Parties Should Follow Movements, Not the Other Way Around: Analyst

Only a democratic movement can lay the foundation for a new type of government, which isn’t possible for political parties to do. A democratic movement doesn’t aim to achieve power: political parties have to follow the movement and not the other way around, said political analyst Edgar Vardanyan, speaking to journalists in the Armenian capital today.

According to him, Armenian society today is unable to unite; it hasn’t found the map to achieve revolution, but this doesn’t mean that the public isn’t quite active.

Environmental initiatives, for example, according to Vardanyan, can become the grounds for a huge movement that will lead to revolution.

The analyst also touched upon proposals and discussions on making amendments to Armenia’s Electoral Code ahead of the parliamentary elections.

“The majority system is favorable to the ruling authorities; they take advantage of the ambitions of oligarchs elected through the majority system. They say, you have to gather votes not only for yourselves, but for the party,” he said, adding that he believes the call to move to a 100% proportional representation system is rational.

However, Vardanyan didn’t consider implementing this legislative amendment ahead of the May 2012 parliamentary elections to be likely.

Note, Armenia’s current legislation reserves 90 parliamentary seats for the proportional representation system, while the remaining 41 MPs are elected on an individual basis in nationwide single-mandate constituencies. Opposition parties and groups are currently calling for all 131 seats to be contested under the proportional representation system.

Photo: Levon Barseghyan’s personal Facebook page