Arpine Hovhannisyan: “The overwhelming majority of criticisms are directed and unfair”

WomenNet.a’s interlocutor is Arpine Hovhannisyan, vice-speaker of the National Assembly, former Minister of Justice of the Republic of Armenia, presented in the 2nd place of the RPA pre-electoral list.

– These snap elections can be considered as force majeure, sharp criticisms, black and white divorces, and there is definitely some difficulty for the female figure, stay and continue the fight.

– It’s a hard question, nobody has promised me that I should work in politics in soft conditions, but the situation we have today- you are right  – it’s a force majeure. I hope it will not become a tradition for Armenia’s political field, neither the political forces nor the Armenian society will adapt to this separation of black and white. I hope we will go back to normal, where women can act without labeling their sexuality. Then our political field will be more healthy, and now, unfortunately, we have a problem with perceptions. It is always the most difficult thing to fight against perceptions, and now that perception is that women’s role is not in politics.

– You are one of the female figures in the post-revolutionary Armenia that felt their public and social pressure and the intolerance and sharp criticism of social network users..

– I can say that I have been a subject of discussions long ago, feeling the public stereotype even when our political power was in power but by entering politics I was ready for it. Should I be sincere? Now, when maintaining the principle of belief, and faith brings to the throes of criticism, it is quite difficult to resist it. It is especially difficult, given the overwhelming majority of these criticisms are directed and unfair. But the problem is not just my personality. It is a pity that in the Armenian society, where at least it is spoken about respecting a woman with respect to a unique system of values, men and even women who can curse, use the most intense vocabulary. Of course, I understand that at this stage there are many fakes, but behind this batch people are standing by their value system or rather in the absence of a normal value system.

 – What message do you have for the voter?

– Let’s be reasonable, let’s try to make our expectations logical and not to raise society, under such circumstances we will have the state we all aspire to, regardless of whether we are the government or the opposition. And I urge our voter not to be afraid and go to the election and express his concerns.

– You see progress in the representation of women in the party lists, given that the current legislation encompasses 25/75 proportions of gender candidates.

– I think if you were expecting progress, you should first look at the” My Step “bloc of the current government and if they were really advocates that every third of them should be a woman, they could de facto do so without waiting for the law : If that was their faith, they could serve as an example in that sense. As for the Republican Party, we have tried to strictly adhere to the provisions of the current law, although the number of female candidates is 33% at the moment.