Dr. Spurkian, a “self-styled intellectual living in the Disapora(s) criticizing everything and anything relevant to things Armenian,” has set up a blog and even posted on Armenia’s coming parliamentary elections. Considering the lack of political will from the authorities to hold clean elections as well as any interest from the electorate, it’s about time someone injected a little humor into the cynicsm that surrounds what is likely to be the mere formality of election day itself.

Sure, make things look like they’re done properly with ballot boxes, electoral commissions, and thugs dressed in black ready to hide when an international observer gets within eyesight, but we all know its just a fascade to the real task at hand. And this year that task is very simple — to create the environment to allow Kocharan to pass on power to a hand-picked successor and to ensure that the economic interests of the ruling elite are protected.

Dr. Spurkian has more.

In a statement from the president of the country (nominal or real president I’m not sure), the date of the next parliamentary elections is set to be on May 12. It seems that the announcement of the date has no consequence on anyone. Some ‘parties’ have already been ‘partying’ their projected win, while the sides which should be the most concerned with the elections – namely the citizens of Armenia – don’t seem to care much about who will be power.

I believe it was Napoleon Bonaparte who – responding to people criticizing him for setting up a monarchy less than two decades after the people of France ousted the previous monarchy – said ‘As long as the people have bread to eat and they are safe at their homes, they don’t care what form of government rules over their head.’ Since I’m not as smart or powerful as napoleon, I figured out I could borrow his statement and apply it in the case of Armenia by saying ‘As long as people have cell phones and cars, while others are barely able to get food on their tables, they don’t care who governs them becuase they are busy sending text messages to each other or struggling to make a living.’

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While in any normal country, elections are a tool for citizens to express their views by choosing the candidates which they think represents them the best, in Armenia that is not the case. Come to think of it, there are so many countries like Armenia where elections are used to validate whatever selection the politicians have already made, that ‘normal’ has changed its meaning.

Elections in Armenia give the illusion of a choice when in reality what citizens are doing is expressing the choice that people in control want them to show. And what makes this whole ‘game’ enjoyable is the fact that most often than not, the political party which seems to be the front runner usually appears less than a year before the elections and miraculously manages to become ‘popular’ almost overnight. The current front runner in Armenia’s parliamentary elections is a party which appeared about a year ago and as I was walking in the streets of Yerevan kept seeing its offices springing up – just like Starbucks cafés in the West – at different parts of town.

[…]

Regardless of what happens in the elections or until then, the best thing that citizens of Armenia can do is to see which party has more to offer. And what is meant by ‘more’ is the amount of bribe rather than promises (unless they are promises of bribe), because at the end of the day the people are tired of being viewed as gullible fools when most of the candidates out there to govern them use all the muscles in their body except the ones in their skull to run the country and the society.

Dr. Spurkian’s full post is here.