Victor Dallakian, Opposition Rally, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia

RFE/RL reports that the Speaker of the National Assembly, Artur Baghdasarian, admits that the majority of Armenians remain apathetic towards plans to ammend the current constitution in November. The statement is perhaps a damning indictment of the perceived lack of legitimacy represented by the government and the president to many. Of course, don’t think that the opposition has the confidence of the people either.

Opinion polls conducted so far indicate that the majority of the country’s population is unaware of the essence of the reform sought by the Council of Europe and approved by the European Union and the United States. According to the most recent voter survey reported last week, only 13 percent of Yerevan residents intend to take part in the planned referendum.

A high voter turnout is a necessary condition for the passage of the amendments that would somewhat curtail sweeping powers enjoyed by the president of the republic. To pass, they need to be backed by a majority of referendum participants that make up at least one third of Armenia’s 2.4 million voters.

Although the opposition had planned to urge voters to turn the referendum into a vote of no confidence in the President Robert Kocharian, it still looks unlikely that the necessary number of voters will turn out to particpate and thus the ammendments will not be passed anyway. All this despite the United States and the Council of Europe’s belief that the ammendments will mark a step forward in Armenia’s democratization.

Unfortunately, the population doesn’t trust or believe in anyone these days and as the present constitution doesn’t function, many question why on earth should Armenia even consider adopting a new one. Still, for all those in the Diaspora who buried their heads in the sand and never questioned the situation in the country, dual citizenship is out, baby.

Ironically, however, we still don’t know whether Kocharian and the ruling coalition want these ammendments passed or not. With local elections planned for October that threaten to turn very nasty indeed, Armenia faces a huge test of its viability as a state. Some argue that if Kocharian does want the referendum passed, allegedly in order to seek a third term in office, it can only be done through falsification and vote-buying.

Meanwhile, the opposition has agreed to partially end its boycott of the Armenian National Assembly. To be honest, I don’t quite understand what a “partial” boycott is. You’re either boycotting something or you’re not. I suppose the matter is that some opposition parties that have been boycotting the National Assembly since February 2004 will return while others will not.

“We will participate in the discussion of only those bills that are very important for the public,” one of its leaders, Victor Dallakian, told reporters after a meeting of the bloc’s 13-strong parliament faction. “If there are deputies who will deem necessary to attend a debate on a particular issue they see as important, the faction will not object.”

Dallakian and other Artarutyun deputies said earlier that the bloc will likely put a permanent end to the boycott and use the parliament for attacking the ruling regime. But two deputies representing the most radical of the nine parties making up Artarutyun insist that they will not enter the National Assembly under any circumstances.

Rather than represent a cooling in relations with the government, however, I suspect that the real reason is a) to appease the Council of Europe who have urged the opposition to return and b) to have access to airtime during televized parliamentary debates to present its platform to the public. It’s possible that after many potentially volatile events towards the end of this year, we could face early parliamentary elections during 2006.