On May 9th and 10th the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) campaigned in the Shirak Marz. The residents of Shirak received the Republicans with an offering of bread and salt, with music and dances. Posters praising the party were hanging everywhere, and tricolors and placards calling for reliance “on our minds and muscles” flooded the central square. In Maralik, the meeting was supposed to take place in a hall, but some of the residents preferred to see the leaders of the party - Prime Minister Andranik Margaryan and Defense Minister Serge Sargissyan - up close. The party bosses considered the discontent expressed by the audience natural, and suggested that the dissatisfied people put their hands over their hearts and ask themselves, “Are we better off today or in 1995?” “If we were better off then, then the prime minister and I had better get up and leave,” Serge Sargissyan said.

During their meeting with Prime Minister Margaryan, the residents of Maralik raised the issues of drinking water and irrigation, and unemployment. Lyova Harutiunyan has lost hope and doesn’t trust any political party: “They only remember us from election to election. They come and make empty promises and go away, then come back again in four or five years. We don’t trust anybody. Corruption, problems with water for drinking and irrigation are strangling people in Maralik. Today ambulances don’t have five liters of gas to take people to the hospital. Five people have died already because they couldn’t get medical assistance. Today we have one party per person. Whoever comes says - we are the best, vote for us, and they come and go like the saviors of the nation, but our situation stays the same.”

Gevork Harutiunyan, too, has lost confidence in the political parties fighting over the elections. He has become disillusioned by this way of living, by the government’s broken promises. “I am fifty-six years old but I’m getting ready to move to Russia, too, to work so I can support my family. 70 % of the young people in our marz are working abroad today, and we have no hope that they’ll ever come back.”

The party held rallies also in Artik, Yerazgavors, Amasia, Ashotsk and Vardakar. People in Vardakar raised the issues of the dilapidated bridge in the village and the wooden floors and ceilings of the school, which was built in 1964 and has never once been renovated. The prime minister ordered Marzpet (governor) Felix Pirumyan to take action. The Marzpet promised to present the government with a list of the unsafe bridges in the marz within a week. The prime minister guaranteed that all the dilapidated bridges in the republic would be renovated at the government’s expense. Gohar Poghosyan of Vardakar came to the meeting with the Republicans to hand a letter to the prime minister: “I asked him for money. I have a son and three grandchildren but I am unable to support myself. My house is half-built.” This woman didn’t even care what party was campaigning in her village.

The RPA chairman promised to double teachers’ salaries and pensions, or at least to increase them by up to 70% by the year 2007. There are numerous socio-economic problems that are not being solved in this marz. The villagers’ letters to the party leaders attest to that. All the villages and towns we visited have almost the same problems. The local residents complained that gas and telephone lines aren’t being provided in the marz.

Samvel Abrahamyan, from Artik, had read the RPA platform but said it was hard to make an assessment. “ Everybody says that they are the best, but they have to prove it with actions.”

In Gyumri, the Republicans believe their trump card is the fact that the majority of residents have new apartments, and that from now on the disaster zone will be called the development zone. Hamlet Gevorkyan from Gyumri sees things differently: “Many people in Gyumri still live in trailers. It’s like Gyumri isn’t one of Armenia’s cities. We hope that after the parliamentary elections our city will become part of Armenia, too.”