Yesterday, Armenian television finally made their minds up and decided not to send any representative to the 2012 Eurovision Song Contest. The reason for this is, of course, the strained relations between them and host country Azerbaijan.
Politics have always been present at Eurovision, but this kind of action has still been rare. In 1979, Turkey made a last-minute decision not to send a song to Jerusalem (some sources claim this was the result of pressure put on Turkey by Arab countries) and in 2009 Georgia ultimately did not participate in Moscow (although they made an attempt of sending an anti-Putin song into competition).
Also, Morocco would have been far less likely to take part in 1980 had Israel participated, just like Lebanon withdrew in 2005 due to not wanting to be in competition with the Jewish state.
I can't blame Armenia for not taking chances, but I can't estimate the effort the EBU and Azeri television made in order to have them in.
However, if Armenia knew already from the beginning that they would not participate, it would have been better to make a dignified exit already before the regular deadline and saved us the last-minute drama.
Now I just hope that Armenian television will still broadcast the ESC from Baku, so the national fans won't miss out, as well as for them to be back with a vengeance in 2013.
Sirusho - Qele Qele (Armenia 2008 preview)
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