May 7, the day after the parliamentary election, dawned as a regular working Monday.

You’d think that the country hadn’t gone to the polls the day before. People were going about their daily grind as if the elections results of the day before had no connection with them or their future lives.

An overall atmosphere of indifference, or better yet, apathy, hung over the country. This “ennui” in no way corresponded to the promises of change made by the ruling regime; promises that allegedly spurred 62% of the electorate to cast ballots. The fact that the ruling regime scored a decisive win, if we are to believe the official count, makes this atmosphere of apathy even more perplexing.

We can point to two main reasons for this post-election indifference. The first is that the people do not view the parliament as a body capable of effecting real change. Second, the results declared by the Central Electoral Commission, for the most part, held no real surprises. It was more a question of what margin of victory would the ruling Republican Party garner, and not one of who would win. A secondary point of intrigue was if the Country of Law and Heritage parties would even surpass the 5% threshold and get seats in the new legislature.

According to the final election results, the new parliament will be comprised of two categories of political parties. On the one hand we have the Republican   and Prosperous Armenia parties (the senior and junior coalition forces) who between them won 74% of the overall vote. Then, straggling behind, are the others who just made the grade – HAK (Armenian National Congress), Heritage, ARF and Country of Law.

As to what the operational arrangement of these forces will be in the new parliament remains to be seen.

Primarily, will the Republican Party, specifically President Sargsyan, be content to run things solely on the overall majority it will enjoy, or will it propose some working “coalition” with the other parties and forces?

Here, Prosperous Armenia faces a real dilemma. Will it meekly swallow its second place showing or transform itself into a true parliamentary opposition.

If it chooses the second path, a sizeable opposition bloc will take shape, given that the ARF, HAK and Heritage will surely come on board. We cannot rule out other configurations. For example, the Republican Party might see fit to attempt a coalition with the ARF, Country of Law and Heritage against Prosperous Armenia, its main contender. Such a scenario is highly unlikely and any such coalition would be in name only.

Until the dust settles, of greater importance is to understand what transpired to secure such a decisive plurality of votes for the ruling Republican Party. Even the Gallup surveys pointed to no such numbers. On the other hand, the votes won by the others were even less than the exit polls were pointing to.

Alley-oop

This picture is essentially shaped by three most important factors. The first, naturally, were the bribes handed out that exceeded all expectations in scope.

Bribes were handed out all over the place and out in the open. Despite this, law enforcement only recorded two cases of bribery.

There are two main reasons for handing out bribes. On the one hand it’s a bet that the one who takes the bribe will at least vote not in support of the Republican Party but for that person and thus escape the wrath of the party if he loses.

 At work is the principle of not “betraying” or “cheating” one’s neighbour or friend, a very important social-psychological factor in the clan mentality of our society.

The second reason is that those who take bribes, whether or not they vote in favour of the party doling out the bribes or not, will never come out in defense of their ballot, to protest, or to link up with the opposition, because by doing so they would immediately betray their real preference and would wind up in a very inconvenient situation.

In other words, doling out election bribes is a fantastic tool to control and quash public discontent. Its uniqueness lies in the fact that not one international election observer never sees it and cannot register it as an election infraction. This is exactly what the authorities need.

The main sleight of hand that the Republican Party used in its victory was the voter rolls themselves. They were never seriously looked at by citizens at large or the united party headquarters set up to prevent electoral fraud.

This is proven by alleged 63% voter turnout despite the unprecedented but widespread apathy of the people and the mistrust expressed regarding the government   by the Gallup surveys.

Then too, there were the strangely high numbers at the polls on Sunday morning, from 8 to 11. This curiously coincided with the missing ink stamps issued to citizens who had already cast a ballot.

But the real problem with the voter rolls was the disparity between the actual numbers of Yerevan residents and those simply registered. This was never adequately examined and it would take a detailed house to house search lasting more than one or two weeks.

This is a process demanding social mobilization and civil fortitude. But we see the exact opposite – the public, or vast segments of it, are in cahoots with the violators. The people know who the bribe givers are. Not only do they not speak up but in fact they actively participate in the illegal operation that merely weakens the state even further.

If the public at large is an active participant in all this then, it goes without saying, that measures to the contrary are doomed to failure.

Put another way, the biggest election fraudster/swindler, willingly or unwillingly, turned out to be a majority of the rank and file citizenry; those who agreed to register others at their apartments and those who were registered.

If the political forces are serious about cleaning up this mess for the 2013 presidential elections they had better start working as of today.

In conclusion, these elections were no step forward from the previous ones. It’s just that crude measures have been replaced with more sophisticated means to cajole, convince, manipulate and pressure.

It’s no big deal that the optimism of the international observers isn’t shared by the public. Their words do not instill joy, confidence ort hope in the hearts of the common man or woman.

They still had to get up on May 7 and face yet another morose Monday work day.