Today the expert on the political and electoral technologies Armen Badalyan talked about the 100% proportionate electoral system shift after the presidential elections and the latter’s consistent demand from the opposition. As he told the First News and Analyses, the opposition strongly holds the view that only the new parliamentary system can be one of the best solutions to the political standstill. Badalyan states, the new system will exclude the oligarchs to be in the parliament hence improving the political life in the country which is a false belief. According to the expert, this news system will not exclude the oligarchs to be a candidate for the proportional electoral system and they will keep on the same mechanism of being elected as they are now. As Badalyan clarifies, the incumbent government at that time may also include the oligarchs and businessmen in its proportionate system or not include them thus making them corrupt the people so that they could be included. The problem here is not in the system but in the fact whether the society will accept the fact of being corrupted.
According to the expert, the type of the electoral system will bring no change because of the electorate in Armenia which is of two types: the first half that is the reasonable voter and the second larger half that votes for a certain candidate because of being corrupted. Hence there is no difference how the people will choose their government because they will make the same mistakes in the 100% proportionate elections too.
A last argument brought by Badalyan was that today the political parties are surrounding the leader of the country, there is no factual team spirit among them and a proportionate electoral system first of all implies this idea of a team spirit. They can be fighting for common interests (the Republican party, PAP and ANC) however there is no common doctrine for the final achievement of the goal. Another problem with this, as Badalyan concludes, is the gradual isolation of the marzes’ population from the political processes and this electoral system change is not a way to solve the issues.
