Many people were disillusioned by the event that took place on May 12 (the Parliamentary elections) and there has been a lot of talk about the irreversible deformation of the political system in the country, laying the blame on the people.

But the May event had positive aspects as well, which lead you to believe that all is not yet lost, that the people – under the pressure of social and economic problems – resisted as much as they could. This resistance led to the failure of a project thought up by those highest in the ruling elite – a project called the ProsperousArmeniaParty.

This political party, founded just a year ago, had one goal in mind – to prolong Robert Kocharyan's political life. ProsperousArmeniawas expected to gain a majority in Parliament and become a leaning post for Kocharyan in his future role as Prime Minister, where the new Constitution would give him powers to make him Number One in the executive government.

One ofArmenia's most influential oligarchs, Gagik Tsarukyan, was chosen to handle this task. He was in Robert Kocharyan's debt for his financial success and had a reputation as a benefactor in the Kotayk Marz. The residents of Kotayk (I have seen and heard this myself) take oaths in the name of Gagik Tsarukyan, saying that while other wealthy people think only about their own pockets, Tsarukyan sets aside a portion of his money for the needy. They do not doubt that it is impossible to get rich legally inArmeniatoday, but do not think that illegal wealth is dishonorable, if that money belongs to a generous man. “That man cares about the people” – this cliché has set the oligarch's reputation.

By choosing Tsarukyan, Kocharyan wanted to spread the example of Kotayk throughoutArmenia, wherein the upper echelons would multiply their wealth but would also suppress the political consciousness of the needy, by “caring about the people.”

The method chosen to reach this goal was the mass recruitment of members, on the assumption that a party can, at most, collect 1.5-2 times the number of votes as the number of registered party members – so the expected number of votes given 370,000 party members would have been half a million or 750,000.

If one considers that the Republican Party has gained a majority in Parliament by receiving 458,258 votes, or the support of one-third of the participating voters, it would seem quite realistic to expect winning a majority through the strategy of mass recruitment. The Prosperous Armenia party members would only have needed to secure a further 100,000 votes in addition to those of their own members.

So what went wrong? ProsperousArmeniareceived only 204,000 votes. Does this mean that only 204,000 of the proclaimed 370,000 members were faithful to their own party? Or would a closer look at the figures show that only 40,000-50,000 party members voted, while the rest of the votes were from their family and friends or other people influenced by the election campaign? It is possible that the Prosperous Armenia votes were faked, but the party is not appealing the results, which suggesrs that they agree with these figures. In any case, if a party collects less votes than its purported number of members, then all the figures remain an enigma.

Who was responsible for the failure of the Prosperous Armenia project, which had been thought up by the President's staff? It is wrong to categorically blame the Republican Party, although they were the main competitors and achieved their results solely through the administrative resources at their disposal. Of the near 950 city and village communities inArmenia, 507 are administered by Republican party members. Ten of theses people are district heads inYerevan. There are also many mayors from the Republican party. Thus, if we divide 458,258 by this number of 507, it would seem that each of these administrators secured 907 votes for their party. If one counts the army, the judiciary and other executive bodies, then this number decreases significantly.

The Republican Party had no need to steal votes from Prosperous Armenia – they had tried to make the maximum use of their administrative resources and succeeded. Prosperous Armenia, at the same time, knew that they would be unable to steal votes from the Republican Party. They had to work with voters outside the administrative influence of the Republicans, meaning that they had to gain votes from part of the confused electorate of the Orinats Yerkir (Country of Law) party as well as the more emotional supporters (those using phrases such as “Let me sacrifice a lamb for you”) of the opposition.

This is where the positive aspects of the May 12 event fall into place. Despite the disorganization of the populist Orinats Yerkir party, and the disunity within the opposition, the mass of voters outside the administrative influence of the Republican Party chose to liquidate their votes, rather than give them to the party of an oligarch, whose sole motivation for entering politics – since he had everything else – was to “care about the people.” The electorate did not believe Gagik Tsarukyan, they did not accept his invitation to build a “Prosperous Armenia” together. They subconsciously realized that if a Prosperous Armenia is possible, then it would not be built by the people in the President's staff or a generous oligarch. A regular voter did not have to think very hard about this – the slogan of “The strong must be fair, the weak protected” used by the party revealed something very important. The residents of a prosperous country must live a life of comfort and dignity, while that slogan promised only protection. What was Tsarukyan going to protect his “weak” voters from – hailstorms, wolves, evil? It remained unclear.

It can be said that a large mass of voters managed to make a choice this time around, by condemning the President's plan to failure. The people proved that they are strong and fair, that it is the weak who try to protect their business interests by entering the halls of Parliament.

This inspires great hope for the future. There is also hope stemming from the fact that the Republicans have now become the ruling party by gaining one-third of the votes of those who participated, and one-fifth of the whole electorate. On May 12, it would seem that the people expressed no confidence in the authorities. There was regime change on May 12 – regime change without opposition.