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NINE CANDIDATES REGISTER FOR ARMENIAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION AS CAMPAIGNING BEGINS
By Emil Danielyan
Eurasia Daily Monitor, DC
Jan 29 2008
Campaigning for Armenia's upcoming presidential election officially
kicked off on January 21 and is turning nasty amid an intensifying
war of words between the country's current and former leaders. Prime
Minister Serge Sarkisian, outgoing President Robert Kocharian's favored
successor, and his most outspoken challenger, former president Levon
Ter-Petrosian, have traded bitter recriminations, upping the stakes
in their presidential bids.
As many as nine candidates were registered by the government-controlled
Central Election Commission (CEC) to contest the election scheduled
for February 19. But only four of them stand a chance of winning
a large number of votes. Apart from Sarkisian and Ter-Petrosian,
those are Vahan Hovannisian of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation,
a junior partner in the ruling coalition, and Artur Baghdasarian,
the leader of the opposition Orinats Yerkir (Country of Law) party.
The absence of credible opinion polls makes it extremely difficult to
gauge the electoral chances of these candidates. Besides, popularity
does not necessarily translate into votes in a country with an
increasingly entrenched culture of electoral fraud. Sarkisian, for
example, is widely regarded as the election favorite primarily because
of his control of many government and law-enforcement bodies that the
ruling regime has used for pressuring and intimidating public-sector
employees and other voters, especially those living in rural areas. It
is these so-called administrative resources, coupled with nationwide
vote buying, that earned Sarkisian's Republican Party (HHK) a landslide
victory in Armenia's May 2007 parliamentary elections.
Sarkisian and the HHK are widely expected to rely on their government
levers this time as well. There are already reports of government
loyalists again visiting people across the country and asking for their
passport data, presumably to bribe them or have somebody else vote
in their place. And as was the case in the run-up to the 2007 polls,
Armenia's major television stations, virtually all of them loyal to
the government, are heavily propagandizing for the Sarkisian campaign.
Of all other presidential candidates, Ter-Petrosian is facing the most
hostile and biased TV coverage, a further indication that Kocharian
and Sarkisian regard him as their most dangerous opponent.
Local commentators believe this perception stems from Ter-Petrosian's
enduring charisma and presumed ability to spread discord within
the hitherto monolithic state apparatus. His aides claim privately
that they have many secret sympathizers within government and
law-enforcement bodies who are ready to defy government orders to
rig the vote and/or use force against opposition demonstrators.
"He has a very powerful personality and a lot of experience," Aleksandr
Iskandarian, director of the Yerevan-based Caucasus Media Institute,
said of the ex-president in an interview with the opposition daily
Haykakan Zhamanak published on January 26. "But can such an individual
break the state apparatus? Yes, he can. Is it easy to do that? No,
it's extremely hard."
The first days of the election campaign showed that Ter-Petrosian's
tactic is to try to tap into popular discontent with Sarkisian
and Kocharian by stepping up his harsh verbal attacks on their
"kleptocratic regime." Campaigning in the central Kotayk region
on January 24, he implicitly accused the two Karabakh-born men of
masterminding the 1999 terrorist attack on the Armenian parliament
which left its speaker, Karen Demirchian, then-prime minister Vazgen
Sarkisian (no relation to Serge) and six other officials dead.
Ter-Petrosian, who returned to active politics last September after
almost a decade of self-imposed retirement, also alleged that Serge
Sarkisian's victory in the presidential ballot would lead to another
Armenian-Azerbaijani war.
Sarkisian shot back the next day at a campaign rally in Yerevan,
saying that Ter-Petrosian is filled with "malice" and discrediting his
own country (Armenian Public Television, January 26). The Armenian
prime minister went further at a similar gathering in the capital
the next day, promising to "sort out all foul-mouthed Satans" after
the election (RFE/RL Armenian service, January 26). Kocharian, for
his part, renewed his allegations that his predecessor is keen to
"surrender Karabakh" to Azerbaijan and turn Armenia into "Turkey's
younger brother." "I didn't know that the first president could
depreciate himself to such an extent," Kocharian said in televised
remarks. (Armenian Public Television, January 26).
Ever since winning independence from Moscow, Armenia has not had a
leadership change as a result of elections, and the upcoming ballot
will hardly be an exception to this rule, given the current Armenian
leadership's dismal electoral record. Few believe that Sarkisian
and Kocharian, who reportedly wants to serve as prime minister after
completing his second and final term as president, would step down if
they lose the presidential race. Ter-Petrosian's comeback and grave
accusations have made the stakes even higher for them. They now risk
losing not only power and the resulting perks but their very freedom.
Echoing statements by senior members of the HHK, Kocharian implied
earlier in January that he thinks Sarkisian is popular enough to
win outright in the first round of voting. Observers agree that
this would be very difficult to achieve without the kind of blatant
ballot stuffing that characterized the last Armenian presidential
election held in 2003 and prompted strong Western criticism. A run-off
vote pitting Sarkisian against an opposition candidate other than
Ter-Petrosian is a more likely government scenario.
The extent of Ter-Petrosian's popularity is another unanswered
question. The 63-year-old former scholar's campaign trips outside
Yerevan have so far not met with the kind of popular enthusiasm that
had been generated by Stepan Demirchian, the assassinated parliament
speaker's son and Kocharian's main challenger in the 2003 election.
But nor has he faced overt hostility, which many Armenians were
thought to have developed toward their former leader because of
severe hardship they had suffered during his 1991-98 rule. In fact,
Ter-Petrosian's recent rallies in Yerevan, attended by between 10,000
and 20,000 people, were the biggest Armenian opposition gatherings
since 2003. The most recent of those rallies, staged on January 22,
attracted approximately as many people as the previous ones despite
an unusually cold weather. Ter-Petrosian has indicated that he will
urge supporters to take to the streets in even larger numbers if the
approaching election is rigged.
The authorities in Yerevan successfully quelled a campaign of street
protests launched by the Armenian opposition in spring 2004 in an
attempt to replicate the 2003 Rose Revolution in neighboring Georgia.
All the signs are that they will soon have to deal with larger crowds
led by a shrewder and more formidable figure.
From: Baghdasarian
By Emil Danielyan
Eurasia Daily Monitor, DC
Jan 29 2008
Campaigning for Armenia's upcoming presidential election officially
kicked off on January 21 and is turning nasty amid an intensifying
war of words between the country's current and former leaders. Prime
Minister Serge Sarkisian, outgoing President Robert Kocharian's favored
successor, and his most outspoken challenger, former president Levon
Ter-Petrosian, have traded bitter recriminations, upping the stakes
in their presidential bids.
As many as nine candidates were registered by the government-controlled
Central Election Commission (CEC) to contest the election scheduled
for February 19. But only four of them stand a chance of winning
a large number of votes. Apart from Sarkisian and Ter-Petrosian,
those are Vahan Hovannisian of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation,
a junior partner in the ruling coalition, and Artur Baghdasarian,
the leader of the opposition Orinats Yerkir (Country of Law) party.
The absence of credible opinion polls makes it extremely difficult to
gauge the electoral chances of these candidates. Besides, popularity
does not necessarily translate into votes in a country with an
increasingly entrenched culture of electoral fraud. Sarkisian, for
example, is widely regarded as the election favorite primarily because
of his control of many government and law-enforcement bodies that the
ruling regime has used for pressuring and intimidating public-sector
employees and other voters, especially those living in rural areas. It
is these so-called administrative resources, coupled with nationwide
vote buying, that earned Sarkisian's Republican Party (HHK) a landslide
victory in Armenia's May 2007 parliamentary elections.
Sarkisian and the HHK are widely expected to rely on their government
levers this time as well. There are already reports of government
loyalists again visiting people across the country and asking for their
passport data, presumably to bribe them or have somebody else vote
in their place. And as was the case in the run-up to the 2007 polls,
Armenia's major television stations, virtually all of them loyal to
the government, are heavily propagandizing for the Sarkisian campaign.
Of all other presidential candidates, Ter-Petrosian is facing the most
hostile and biased TV coverage, a further indication that Kocharian
and Sarkisian regard him as their most dangerous opponent.
Local commentators believe this perception stems from Ter-Petrosian's
enduring charisma and presumed ability to spread discord within
the hitherto monolithic state apparatus. His aides claim privately
that they have many secret sympathizers within government and
law-enforcement bodies who are ready to defy government orders to
rig the vote and/or use force against opposition demonstrators.
"He has a very powerful personality and a lot of experience," Aleksandr
Iskandarian, director of the Yerevan-based Caucasus Media Institute,
said of the ex-president in an interview with the opposition daily
Haykakan Zhamanak published on January 26. "But can such an individual
break the state apparatus? Yes, he can. Is it easy to do that? No,
it's extremely hard."
The first days of the election campaign showed that Ter-Petrosian's
tactic is to try to tap into popular discontent with Sarkisian
and Kocharian by stepping up his harsh verbal attacks on their
"kleptocratic regime." Campaigning in the central Kotayk region
on January 24, he implicitly accused the two Karabakh-born men of
masterminding the 1999 terrorist attack on the Armenian parliament
which left its speaker, Karen Demirchian, then-prime minister Vazgen
Sarkisian (no relation to Serge) and six other officials dead.
Ter-Petrosian, who returned to active politics last September after
almost a decade of self-imposed retirement, also alleged that Serge
Sarkisian's victory in the presidential ballot would lead to another
Armenian-Azerbaijani war.
Sarkisian shot back the next day at a campaign rally in Yerevan,
saying that Ter-Petrosian is filled with "malice" and discrediting his
own country (Armenian Public Television, January 26). The Armenian
prime minister went further at a similar gathering in the capital
the next day, promising to "sort out all foul-mouthed Satans" after
the election (RFE/RL Armenian service, January 26). Kocharian, for
his part, renewed his allegations that his predecessor is keen to
"surrender Karabakh" to Azerbaijan and turn Armenia into "Turkey's
younger brother." "I didn't know that the first president could
depreciate himself to such an extent," Kocharian said in televised
remarks. (Armenian Public Television, January 26).
Ever since winning independence from Moscow, Armenia has not had a
leadership change as a result of elections, and the upcoming ballot
will hardly be an exception to this rule, given the current Armenian
leadership's dismal electoral record. Few believe that Sarkisian
and Kocharian, who reportedly wants to serve as prime minister after
completing his second and final term as president, would step down if
they lose the presidential race. Ter-Petrosian's comeback and grave
accusations have made the stakes even higher for them. They now risk
losing not only power and the resulting perks but their very freedom.
Echoing statements by senior members of the HHK, Kocharian implied
earlier in January that he thinks Sarkisian is popular enough to
win outright in the first round of voting. Observers agree that
this would be very difficult to achieve without the kind of blatant
ballot stuffing that characterized the last Armenian presidential
election held in 2003 and prompted strong Western criticism. A run-off
vote pitting Sarkisian against an opposition candidate other than
Ter-Petrosian is a more likely government scenario.
The extent of Ter-Petrosian's popularity is another unanswered
question. The 63-year-old former scholar's campaign trips outside
Yerevan have so far not met with the kind of popular enthusiasm that
had been generated by Stepan Demirchian, the assassinated parliament
speaker's son and Kocharian's main challenger in the 2003 election.
But nor has he faced overt hostility, which many Armenians were
thought to have developed toward their former leader because of
severe hardship they had suffered during his 1991-98 rule. In fact,
Ter-Petrosian's recent rallies in Yerevan, attended by between 10,000
and 20,000 people, were the biggest Armenian opposition gatherings
since 2003. The most recent of those rallies, staged on January 22,
attracted approximately as many people as the previous ones despite
an unusually cold weather. Ter-Petrosian has indicated that he will
urge supporters to take to the streets in even larger numbers if the
approaching election is rigged.
The authorities in Yerevan successfully quelled a campaign of street
protests launched by the Armenian opposition in spring 2004 in an
attempt to replicate the 2003 Rose Revolution in neighboring Georgia.
All the signs are that they will soon have to deal with larger crowds
led by a shrewder and more formidable figure.
From: Baghdasarian