This month, there was a rush of computer donating in Armenia. Suddenly, parliamentary candidates started realizing that our schools needed computer classes. Indeed, before the campaign had even begun, Harutiun Pambukyan had opened a computer class in his future precinct, and once the race was underway, he kept up the good work. Another candidate, well-known businessman Khachatur Sukiasyan, took up the work of donating computers with the same enthusiasm. And before that, another well-known businessman, Gagik Abrahamyan, had gotten involved in the work. Representatives of the Ramkavar Azatakan Party take part in his ribbon-cuttings.

In various precincts, voters are presented with money, food, water meters, flour; the streets are paved with asphalt ...

According to Article 18, Paragraph 7 of the Election Code, “During an election campaign it is prohibited for the candidates (parties) personally or by other means to give (promise) to citizens free of charge or on preferential terms money, foodstuffs, company shares, or other products, or to provide (promise) services.”

But as May 25th approaches, this article of the Election Code is violated more and more often.

Every voter sells his vote - he names his price, or has his value decided for him. The lowest price in circulation today is 500 Drams (less then a dollar).

Paragraph 8 of the article states: “If such a violation occurs, the commission that registered the candidate (the party) appeals to the appropriate agencies to prevent these violations, and to the court to have the registration of the candidate or party list in question declared invalid.”

Every day, you can see the law being broken time and again on TV and in the newspapers. But the Central Election Commission has only registered two complaints so far. One was from cheated depositors in Credit Yerevan Bank, whose main shareholder and chairman is Martin Hovhannisyan. They complained that Hovhannisyan had been paving streets and putting up lights in Precinct # 2. The other complaint came from Karapet Rubinyan, a majoritarian candidate in Precinct #13, who said that Grigor Margaryan, another candidate in the precinct, was advertising free legal advice to voters in his campaign brochure. The CEC looked at these complaints and threw them out. None of the election commissions have registered even one case when Article 18, Paragraph 8 of the Election Code was applied. In other words, no candidate or political organization has been held responsible for breaking the law.

Following May 25th, the various international organizations that conducted observer missions will put facts like these in their reports, and at that point we will become defiant, saying that our mentality is different. But during the campaign, all the parties are talking about the rule of law, about fighting corruption and establishing law and order.

Almost all of the nation’s chosen pepper their campaign speeches with fancy slogans, though there are those among them who can’t even write their own names correctly. Of course, there are people like that in the sitting parliament as well, as Speaker of Parliament Armen Khatchatryan recently confessed on TV.

After all is said and done, the law is being broken by tacit agreement on both sides. The voters take election bribes and the candidates give them. Buying and selling is going on in every part of Armenia - in the form of asphalt, cooking oil, cigarettes, computers ...

This is the mentality that so many of our officials keep boasting of.