A rally was held today in Armenia's liberty square by Raffi Hovannesian, the main challenger to the President in Monday's elections. Hovannesian, who official results claim lost with 37% of the vote, insists that independent precinct reports and widespread documentation of fraud prove he received upwards of 80% of the vote and is the true winner of the race. He called on President Sargsyan to transfer over power to him within 24 hours, wherein another rally will be held at 5 pm tomorrow.
I was expecting a much larger turnout at the rally given the widespread disgruntlement of the population with the ruling regime, the various reports suggesting Hovannesian won precincts throughout the country, and insistence that he is the real presidential victor. Announcements for the rally were being circulated on Facebook under the rallying cry that "tomorrow the Raffilution begins".
For me, the lower than expected attendance, inability to hear what was being said due to the weak sound system, and general mood of the gathering was somewhat deflating and disappointing.
It will be interesting to see how many people show up for tomorrow's rally.
Meanwhile, a more moving display was an action carried out today by a group of activists who took over a press conference of OSCE observers in Yerevan (see video below). They read a statement protesting the European body's acquiescence and rubber stamping of the violations that took place in the elections, while the officials stood by confused and in dissaray.
Part of the statement read, "Dear political tourists, stop legitimizing fraudulent elections! You are violating the international mechanisms you set yourselves."
Turns out this was for the press and not a rally. It was kind of confusing. Tomorrow he said he will have speakers and its a "rally".
ReplyDeleteI believe that many people didn't vote for him but voted for him as a protest vote against Serj. Though most of the country really does like Raffi but the lack of opposition support and Heritage party mobilization is another reason for the low turnout. Tomorrow will say a lot.
I agree with you Manuk. It was definitely confusing and the low turnout did suggest that the votes were Raffi were probably more in protest of Serj, which is not necessarily a bad thing.
ReplyDeleteThe whole changing the description of the gathering from a rally to a "press conference" after the fact is a bit silly, though. The calls for people to come out prior to the event were clearly in the tone of a rally, in fact a "Raffilution." The attempt to give the low turnout political spin by now calling it a "press conference" is really not becoming of a serious effort to change politics for the better in the country, in my opinion.