barevolution purpose: to bar evolution

I figured out the purpose of the whole road show and Raffi's 3 ring circus.

To bar political evolution in Armenia.

Inauguration(s)

I think Andreas Ghukasyan deserves to have an inauguration too.  He ran for president, feels like he got more votes than he was officially credited with, and even went on a pretty long hunger strike.  And the hunger strike was less confusing than Raffi's (I refer to the second one) because it started with a stated purpose and ended at elections, all comprehensible to me.  In fact, why stop at three?  I think we should have a few more inaugurations next week.  But let's spread them out so we don't cut into each other's TV time.  Maybe I'll have one too.  I'll round up a few friends to sing some songs, dance, and get my relatives to talk about what a cool guy I am.

So what will it be?

The rhetoric is confusing.  One day, it is about the rule of law, the next day some anarchist revolution.  If a few hundred people come out to see the road show, then we invoke "the people" as some kind of nouveau-Leninist populism.  If no one comes to see the show, it must be the evil local fiefdom leaders who have scared "the people" away.  Instead of campaigning with a real platform with real ideas to implement change in Yerevan, Raffi ended his Easter fast and...left town.  To go to the regions to continue his Presidential inertial campaign, only now post-election.  If I were a Yerevan resident who supported him I would be wondering why he is not focusing on the effort needed to win a greater share of the splintered electorate.

The American observer swore she saw ballot stuffing, but when they opened the box, they found nada, nothing, zippo.  Honestly, I am at a loss as to how this is explained away.  And just when rational minds would look to find a rational explanation for the allegations, the focus is shifted to the allegations of blackmail of the observer...yet another bait and switch tactic designed to confuse people and take their collective eyes off the ball.

April 9 will be the inauguration of Sargsyan and I am waiting to see what Raffi's action plan is.  So far it keeps giving off the smell of confusion and diversion.

Armenian reality stranger than fiction

Random thoughts:

• Raffi Hovannisyan is on a hunger strike...again.  And again, is scheduled to end it without effect.  He also announced that he is taking the show to the regions...despite the fact that there is ANOTHER election he is positioning himself to be unprepared for locally.
• Vardan Oskanian is being pushed forward by Gagik Tsarukyan to be mayor of Yerevan.  Images of Oskanian as manager of the city of Yerevan has many cringing.
• Mika Baghdasarov's airplane company is reportedly bankrupt.
• Easter, a time for forgiveness and rebirth, is around the corner.
• While there are some (timely, don't you think) roads being paved and lane markers being drawn in Yerevan, for all their complaining, nobody from the opposition seems to be presenting action plans to the population on how to take this city from here to there.
• Vague threats are being posed from various corners to try and torpedo the inauguration scheduled to take place on April 9.

How is your weekend going?

A dose of reality, please

Raffi's latest demands include the immediate handing over of five state institutions to his discretion, including the National Security Service, Prosecutor's Office, Foreign  Ministry (deja vu?), Tax/Customs, and more.  With all due respect to Raffi's popularity (wrapped around the populist rhetoric), someone needs to bring him back to earth.  There is a reason why so few of the independent young free-thinking citizen of Yerevan are supporting Raffi.  Because after the euphoria of greeting each other and chanting happy slogans wears off, there is a managerial, operational question that Raffi should answer for the people.  What is his plan forward?  A reckless, destabilizing, and unfounded power-grab makes it look like he views this whole political exercise like a board-game.

I am getting more concerned that the destabilizing effect will overwhelm whatever possible benefit this irrational standoff may otherwise bring forward.

If in fact he is this confident in his popularity, he should win "80%" of the Yerevan municipal elections, organize his team to be as vigilant as possible to minimize the vote fraud, and generate greater moral cache.  Otherwise, he will demonstrate that he entered yet another political struggle unprepared...one more feather in the Cap of Management Inability.

Logic 101

Does anyone else feel like there is a serious dose of logic missing from Raffi's latest letter, published in the Moscow Times?

"Then on election day, the miracle happened. The government machine failed in almost every major city. Even according to official results Sargsyan lost by large margins."

http://www.themoscowtimes.com/opinion/article/sargsyan-stole-the-presidential-election-from-me/476927.html


Actually, Raffi, you lost according to the official results, and by a substantial 20 or so points.  That there were irregularities everyone agrees (the degree to which is where there are differences of opinion).

So, please explain to me why you consider yourself to be the rightful winner?  What if the irregularities in fact accounted for a difference in +5% for you and -5% for Sargsyan?  What if all the stolen votes were for some other candidate, for example, Andreas Ghukasyan...would you be declaring him winner?  How do you know?  And aren't you the one crooning about rule of law?  Is rule of law determined a la Mussolini, that is, whoever is shouting the loudest in the town square decides what the people think?  There are 5k or so people at your rallies, leaving, say, 995,000 or so Yerevan residents not at the rallies.  Are these 99.5% not "the people" too?

On what basis are you calling yourself president?
 

Hunger Strike Redux

So what exactly is Raffi's plan?  It seems like we are moving from aimless to destabilizing.  I am concerned now that the well-intentioned but strategy-absent Raffi will give way to those who have demonstrated on several occasions that a weakened Armenian state is their goal.  And along the way, a new wave of naive youth will feel let down.

This is some weird Gandhi-wanna-be distortion and it doesn't feel right to me.