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Journalism is one of the devices whereby industrial autocracy keeps its control over political democracy; it is the day-by-day, between-elections propaganda, whereby the minds of the people are kept in a state of acquiescence, so that when the crisis of an election comes, they go to the polls and cast their ballots for either one of the two candidates of their exploiters.

 

Upton Sinclair

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There are elections and elections, there are many Arab presidents who are elected with 99.9, 94.7, 87.4 percent of the vote in elections but nobody believes these elections. They're not real elections and the election that's going to be held in Iraq in January, if it is held at all - and there is a big question mark over that – will not be a real election. How can you have a real election with hundreds of thousands of Crusader soldiers occupying the country, drawing up the electoral law, deciding who is allowed to take part in the elections, and utterly dominating the political life of the country?

 

George Galloway

 

Our popular Government has often been called an experiment. Two points in it our people have already settled—the successful establishing and the successful administering of it. One still remains—its successful maintenance against a formidable internal attempt to overthrow it. It is now for them to demonstrate to the world that those who can fairly carry an election can also suppress a rebellion; that ballots are the rightful and peaceful successors of bullets, and that when ballots have fairly and constitutionally decided there can be no successful appeal back to bullets; that there can be no successful appeal except to ballots themselves at succeeding elections. Such will be a great lesson of peace, teaching men that what they can not take by an election neither can they take it by a war; teaching all the folly of being the beginners of a war.

 

Abraham Lincoln

 

Good evening. We, I believe, are dealing with a very normal situation in Armenia...one dealing with political structuring...Armenia's government has never faced this kind of opposition from its inner workings. We must compare the desires given by people both in Armenia and those who aren't living there. It's a very serious situation and...I would like to repeat that these elections were the best in the history of Armenia. There are no countries where in the middle of elections there wouldn't be errors. We are talking about errors that are instigated and how they are brought about...what types of errors, brought about by the system or simply events that lead up to this. There is also a truthful perspective about complaining of the elections...we have here some very interesting facts. We have received complaints about recounting 156 or 159 places, of which 135 have been recounted, and only in one have we had a problem. The leader of that area has been handcuffed and will go straight to court. In other places, the main problem has been about whether or not all the ballots were in...as if ballots were in here or there. This shows that, in reality, the elections have passed with high admirable quality and are correctly done and if there are some complaints, we have the court system to deal with these, where people can easily bring forth their complaints. And, I'd like to add that within the 135 places that were recounted, 86 of them were recounted because Levon Ter-Petrossian and Arthur Bagdasarian had complained about them. So...these complaints have absolutely no foundation. So, let me repeat...yes this is an absence of political agenda.

 

Robert Kocharyan

 

Dear compatriots, a self-endorsed candidate, who lost the 2008 Presidential elections, Levon Ter-Petrossian and a group of his adventurous supporters, not being able to come to terms with the defeat have instigated illegal activities. Among these actions the accumulation of weapons and their transportation to public places, where the presence of weapons may put life and health of the citizens in serious danger, as well as the organization of the meetings and marches without proper notification. Despite the facts that the recount of the ballots, conducted by demand of the candidates participating at the 2008 presidential elections, did not reveal serious irregularities, that no complaints were filed with the administrative courts of Armenia, that in accordance with the Law on Elections the due process of examining the disputations is being conducted by the Constitutional Court, the supporters of candidate Ter-Petrossian continue to dispute the outcome of the elections through illegitimate means. A group of opposition members on March 1 instigated disorder in the center of Yerevan, inflicting damage to the citizens and state property as well as causing direct threat to the safety of the people, which can take the situation out of control. The objective of these actions is to challenge the stability achieved by the Republic of Armenia, the outcome of these actions will be the dented international image of Armenia. As the guarantor of the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia I will allow no one to endanger the constitutional order in our state. To prevent any threat to the constitutional order and guided by the paragraph 14 of Article 55, after consultations with the Speaker of the National Assembly and Prime Minister of Armenia, I signed an order to declare in Yerevan a state of emergency for twenty days starting from March 1. The order on the state of emergency requires the following actions: a) ban on meetings, gatherings, demonstrations, marches and other mass events, b) ban on strikes or other actions that may stop or disrupt activities of enterprises, c) inspection of and restriction on movement of individuals and vehicles by the law enforcement bodies when necessary, d) the publications in the mass media on the issues of internal situation and state importance to be restricted to official information provided by the state entities, e) ban on dissemination of fliers and other means of political propaganda without permission of state structures, f) temporary ban on the activities of the political parties and other public organizations, which impede the removal of the causes that resulted in the introduction of the state of emergency, g) expulsion of the non-residents of the given areas, who have violated the legal regime under the state of emergency at their own disbursement, and in the case of absence of such disbursement to cover the expenses from the state budget of the Republic of Armenia on the condition of a subsequent reimbursement. I appeal to everyone to demonstrate restraint and wisdom. In this situation more than ever it is necessary to team up and to fulfill unconditionally all the requirements of the law. I assure you that the state of emergency will be lifted as soon as the causes for its introduction have been eliminated.

 

Robert Kocharyan

 

A unique opportunity has opened up in Kyrgyzstan to deal with democracy. We started to go toward democracy, and it was interrupted. Now there is a chance to come back to democracy, and in half a year my interim government should prepare elections — open and transparent elections — and we should pass a constitution based on political agreement between the parties. We have quite a task.

 

Roza Otunbayeva