Seeking Logic: Arpine Hovhannisyan on Six-Day Debate between Power and Opposition

Former Minister of Justice Arpine Hovhannisyan has commented on the recent discussions in the National Assembly, summarizing them as a debate lasting over 40 hours. She published her version of the main mutual accusations exchanged between the government and the opposition, stating that both sides have accused each other of electoral fraud, vote theft, using administrative resources, and electoral bribery.

“OPPOSITION: you are election falsifiers, you stole votes from the 'Prosperous Armenia' party, you falsified the elections, used administrative resources, your parliament is not legitimate. GOVERNMENT: you also obtained votes through electoral bribery, you bought people's votes, we helped you with votes from 'Prosperous'. If we are not legitimate, what are you doing here? OPPOSITION: we have come to remove you, and we will remove you. GOVERNMENT: cut your votes, apologize. You have been on the lists of three parties, you are bad and have no moral right to speak. OPPOSITION: you have denied Artsakh, you have destroyed the country, you are bringing Azerbaijanis. Our candidate is good, and so on, and so forth. GOVERNMENT: well, let’s work politely, or it will be bad. OPPOSITION: let’s work. We have drawn the lines, know your place. GOVERNMENT: you are bad, but we will give you our votes. It is a constitutional requirement. (Of course, there is no such constitutional requirement, but it's a government that respects the Constitution.) OPPOSITION: thanks to your votes, our candidate will have the highest legitimacy. And again, those who falsified the elections, those who stole votes, the political leaders responsible for forming the non-legitimate parliament legitimized the opposition with their votes. (In their own words) Thus, the votes of the non-legitimate members of a non-legitimately formed parliament, when given to the opposition, suddenly become a source of legitimacy and make the representative of the opposition the most legitimate. Cognitive dissonance. Seeking logic. Phase 1: completed. Phase 2: launched,” Hovhannisyan wrote.