As for people around you, that’s the problem. People here base everything on the people around them.

On that basis, if I look at those I come into contact with on a daily basis, the vast majority are going to vote for Serge or not at all.

Others are considering Baghdasarian or Hovannisian. One is considering Levon.

But that’s the problem. Society is not the people we know because Armenian circles are generally polarized.

The view of people in civil society, for example, is different than the view of students.

The view of people in a village is different from people living in the very center of the city in a new luxury apartment.

None of these people ever get to interact, or do so very rarely.

Anyway, just to say that the energy at the OYP rally is enough for me to say that they were for the most part genuine supporters.

On the other hand, these rallies are rather ridiculous. It’s more existing supporters often bussed in than an undecided electorate who want to consider Baghdasarian, Ter-Petrosian, Sargsyan etc.

It’s not real campaigning and such events are designed to life party spirits, but also to provide good video material for TV election slots.

Anyway.

However, I don’t think that it’s all of it, as illustrated by so many young faces in Baghdasarian’s crowd compared to Ter-Petrossian’s. Again, I think both need each other to combine different segments of society into one more potentially powerful support base. I guess that’s what we might see on Saturday.

However, that’s not necessarily bad because on the one hand you have the more traditional disenfranchised radical opposition supporter who alone cannot change anything, but with many supporters in the media and civil society, and the more middle class and youthful support base of Heritage and OYP.

And yes, OYP does have a support base and a strong party structure. That’s why it, along with Heritage, are in parliament and Aram Sargsyan, Nikol Pashinian and Stepan Demirchian are not. It’s also why you don’t see so many young people at Ter-Petrossian rallies, and why police brutally disperse rallies when they don’t include students and children and get away with it internationally.

Now the trick is to get everyone together to combine the strengths of each component part to negate the weaknesses of each. That’s where the opposition have always slipped up in the past. Let’s see if things will be different this time.

People had arrived in the square with slogans such as Gyumri supports Arthur Baghdasaryan; Spitak is with you; Towards new Armenia; Armenia, open your eyes. There were numerous posters with presidential candidate Arthur Baghdasaryan’s picture, Armenian three-colored flags and one European Union flag. Based on the calculations of different sources, up to 20 thousand people had gathered in the square.

[…]

“Welcome to presidential candidate and soon-to-be Armenian president Arthur Baghdasaryan,” announced CofL deputy Hovhannes Margaryan running the gathering. The crowd chanted, “Vic-to-ry, vic-to-ry.”

“We will not tolerate the reproduction of the Karabakh clan. We need a new, people’s president, and that president is Arthur Baghdasaryan,” announced CofL member Armen Ghazaryan, the first speechmaker.

Sanatruk Sahakyan, the chairman of CofL Social Fairness Union and a former communist Sanatruk Sahakyan stated that “people in Armenia would like to live in new Armenia, headed by Arthur Baghdasaryan,” and recited the following electoral quatrain for the gathered people,

“Open the doors,

Spring is coming,

Spring is coming,

Serzh is crying,

Why is he crying?

Arthur is coming.”

[…]

“This is a people’s movement,” Arthur Baghdasaryan declared, adding that there were going to be more people joining the movement.

While talking about the possibility to join the other oppositional candidates, Baghdasaryan informed that negotiations were in process and declared, “Time and negotiations will show who is going to join but I think that today it will be an honor for any politician to join us and to join these thousands of people.” “Tomorrow Levon Ter-Petrossian and Raffi Hovhannisyan are going to join this gathering – all those people that want to live in a free, fair country. It is not important who will join whom. However, joining is very important,” Arthur Baghdasaryan said.

[…]

Arthur Baghdasaryan said goodbye to the gathered people, noting that “this meeting is just the start, and the next meeting is going to be more powerful.”