The effect of pragmatic populism

What do you think: if one of the powers participating in the parliamentary elections states, that coming to power the pension will become AMD 500 thousand, salary of teachers—AMD 1 million, prices of consumer goods will half decrease, and public services (gas, electricity, water) will make free of charge, what will happen then?

Let’s try to guess. Experts, reporters and political contestants will start actively criticizing those promises, proving that they are unrealistic and from the genre of populism. Heaty debates will be launched, even personal offense will be heard.

Active discussions will be held on social networks, in particular, on Facebook. Some people will make criticizing posts, others will make humors, and the third group will invent memes and start trolling. Fake users, which are becoming more and more in this pre-election period will join the feast. In short, Armenia will start discussing those promises. Moreover, the more unrealistic promises are, the more it will be touched upon.

What will follow then? People, who consider themselves cognizant, follow the media digest, have some knowledge, are informed, will understand that this is classical populism. It’ll also seem to them that due to that noise everybody understood that one shouldn’t be cheated.

The one from this cognizant mass will meet his/her remote relative, who is hard-working and repairs houses and uses social networks only to play backgammons. Our cognizant citizen will ask: who are you going to vote for, if it’s not a secret? Of course—X. Why? Who else, I’ll vote as I want to get a pension of AMD 500 thousand a few years later.

The cognizant will start explaining him/her, that it’s impossible, that the state doesn’t have enough resources, that it’s an extra burden for the budget and etc. While pronouncing “additional burden for the budget” expression, he/she looks at the interlocutor’s face, he/she will understand that the interlocutor doesn’t want to listen to him/her.

Then he/she will realize that arguments aren’t interesting to that person both for the reason that he/she doesn’t have enough background, and for the reason that he/she is enthusiastic with the perspective of AMD 500 thousand pension and free gas, and doesn’t want to be cut off from his/her dream.

And what is the most terrible, he/she will realize that people thinking like his/her relative are many, too many. A few dozens or a few hundreds more, than his/her cognizant Facebook “environment”. He/she will realize that the noise around populist promises didn’t contribute, that people comprehended the reality, just the contrary, it contributed that as more people heard about that 500 thousand and other benefits.

It’ll be better not to touch upon it at all. And election result will prove that “facebooks” are far from the reality. A populist will hardly assume one-person authority, however, he/she will gain more votes, than intellectual powers with serious and grounded programs.

Who is guilty—the one who gives promises? Of course, not. In all likelihood, author of those promises the least believes in what he/she said. However, he/she knows that supporter will be more. Moreover, he/she promises rather freely. As on the one hand, he/she is internally sure that there will be no reason to prove his/her words, as he/she has no chances to come to power. And even if he/she comes, as Churchill said, he/she will successfully ground why the promises didn’t come true. If we observe elections from business perspective, where heaty competition is launched, their marketing justifies itself.

In short, populists, perhaps, are the best informed and the most pragmatic powers, as they know the electorate. If the electorate intends to be deceived, no one can hinder him/her.

However, one the other hand, the society doesn’t want to be cheated (moreover, Armenians). Simply the bitter confession will be, it should be admitted that regarding minimum economy knowledge our society is in a rather non-enviable condition. The one having minimum economy knowledge realizes that the pension is being paid from taxes, and if pension increases, collected taxes will increase either. As soon as he/she realized this, many other issues will emerge. He/she will also realize that gas can’t be free, as Armenia doesn’t have gas resources. That state can’t drop prices for consumer goods, as it isn’t the seller, i.e. the issue is really in educating the society. There won’t be any need to convince cognizant and educated citizen that taking election brine isn’t a good thing, stressing moral values. The citizen will realize himself/herself that an oligarch, taking part in the elections, won’t make a gift of a few million dollars and that he will have back twice as much.

Moreover, the issue doesn’t refer to elections only. A citizen takes a loan from the bank without comprehending the difference in actual and nominal interest rate. And when he/she finds out that 24% is being charged instead of 12%, he/she starts accusing banks, which have cheated them.

For the sake of justice it should be stated that certain progress has been recorded throughout these years. The society has become more informed and cautious, and doesn’t unconditionally believe in everything, which is said. However, temp of that progress is very weak. As, basically, at large no one should work hardly to that end. The “cognizant” will harshly state that it serves this nation right and they’ll continue their intellectual debates on Facebook and Twitter.

As a result, the process has so distorted that the authorities are using the above-mentioned issue to justify his/her actions.

For instance, they say: can you imagine what would happen is that one was elected and took the promised step, the country would lead to destruction. With open text, of course, this isn’t stated, however, this idea is in the context, as the people were about to make a wrong choice, and we prevented it. Or, if we reformulate it, the message is as follows: it’s better that elections were forged, than allow an idiot (in their opinion) or an adventurist come to power.

However, this is a rather big issue: what really lead the country to destruction? Wrong or unsuccessful choice (real choice) or “preventing that incorrect choice”? it’s difficult to answer the question as there was no opportunity to observe implications of the first option, and after-effects of the second we see until now. And it’s more probable that the price of people’s “wrong choice” is the price, which should be at least once paid to build a normal country.

By Babken Tunyan