Speeches

Speech of the RA Human Rights Defender Armen Harutyunyan
06/09/09

On June 9 the Civilitas foundation organized a forum on “the Right to Elect”. The main speakers of the forum were  President of the Civilitas Board Vartan Oskanian and  RA Human Rights Defender Armen Harutyunyan. Some parts of the Defender’s speech are presented below.

1. We are living in an epoch when materialistic manifestations reveal the spiritual incapability of the century, when the way of thinking is exclusively preconditioned by the aspiration for the power and success. However, in my judgment, the very absence of the spiritual values and  metaphysics leads to the totalitarian power of one person in respect of another. It is already 18 years our system pushes out and suppresses spiritual values, as a consequence of that, a significant part of the population continues to sell their votes. So, what kind of electoral system we can speak about under these conditions?  
It is easier to rule a materialized person, so the question on how we are  going to address current geopolitical challenges with such kind of people is thus pushed into the background.

2. In free social and economic structures they assume responsibility not only for the defeats but also for the victories. The sense of responsibility enables to resist temptation of the victory and success. Among us the victory is often a way for evading responsibility, while the defeat results in responsibility. Failures and defeats are as much important as the success and victory for an individual and political party. The law of nature, saying in legal terminology- natural law, presumes changeableness, only under such conditions  an individual, party and society can perfect themselves. The liberal democracy is a reflection of natural laws in the social system. Yet, when the opposition consistently looses and the state authority wins, the society feels itself alienated. This kind of system, in my opinion,  anticivilized. This path leads to the slow destruction.

3. The Republican Party should not only be inspired by its victory, but also assume responsibility which is much  broader for the winner. At the same time, the opposition should not be disappointed with its failure and accept its part of responsibility. The electoral system is a permanent process and not just voting. The objectivity of the system depends on the quality of the political system, whether it is one-centered or is balanced by the opposition and the power. In that respect, the ruling parties making effective use of the administrative resources, achieved certain results.  On the other part, in my view, dangerous impulses for the opposition parties are the facts that a significant part of the opposition population has not changed their views; however, they do not consider the present opposition as an alternative for the state authority. I think that about half of the electorate of Yerevan has always had and still continues to uphold opposition views, yet they do not see the political party to which they would give the preference. In my opinion, the electorate of the “Heritage” party did not participate in the elections, not seeing Armenian National Congress as an alternative for the preferred party. I think that the substantial part of the electorate, which did not take part in the elections, has oppositional views.

4. Constitutionality is a reflection of natural patterns and a restriction of the state authority resources. When in the result of political struggle the winning political force becomes the owner of the whole system, then we have the constitution but are deprived of the constitutionality.

5. The National Assembly is a platform for clash of ideas, a tool for initiating dialogue. If the National Assembly is not that arena, if the minority is deprived of possibility to present  and influence the decisions of the majority, when there is no dialogue, instead the atmosphere of monologue prevails, then we have a National Assembly, but do not have parliamentarism.  The dictatorship of the majority does not comply with the principles of the representative democracy. The dictatorship of the majority can quickly transform into the dictatorship of the minority, as people isolate themselves from the political force which having received the mandate of majority votes of the population, then uses it for the dictatorship and suppressing different opinions.