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Eurasianet: Armenia: Political Shooting Could Delay Presidential Ele

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  • Eurasianet: Armenia: Political Shooting Could Delay Presidential Ele

    EURASIANET: ARMENIA: POLITICAL SHOOTING COULD DELAY PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

    February 1, 2013 - 11:47am, by Gayane Abrahamyan

    The shooting in Armenia of opposition presidential candidate Paruyr
    Hayrikian is raising the possibility that the election, scheduled for
    February 18, could be postponed.

    According to preliminary police reports, 63-year-old Hayrikian, a
    former Soviet dissident and the leader of the tiny National
    Self-Determination Union, was shot once through the collarbone late
    January 31 near his house in Yerevan. He was reportedly in stable
    condition at St. Gregory the Illuminator Hospital. A hospital
    representative told EurasiaNet.org that the candidate's vital organs
    escaped harm by "a miracle." The motive for the shooting was not
    immediately clear.

    No arrests in connection with the incident had been made as of late
    February 1, but authorities revealed they had recovered evidence,
    including a shell casing, from the crime scene. Based on a preliminary
    ballistics investigation, a police report, , estimates that the
    assailant shot at Hayrikian twice from close range, as near as
    30-to-40 centimeters (about 12 to 16 inches).

    Artur Baghdasarian, secretary of the National Security Council, said
    at a February 1 news conference that President Serzh Sargsyan had
    ordered the National Security Service, Armenia's senior investigative
    department, to prioritize the case. "Our law-enforcement bodies will
    do their best to find the culprits and punish them because this is a
    mean and treacherous blow during an election period," Baghdasarian
    said in comments broadcast on Armenian Public Television.

    The case is being investigated as an assassination attempt against a
    state, political or public figure intended to disrupt the elections,
    Baghdasarian said. The charge carries a prison sentence ranging from
    12-to-20 years to life behind bars.

    What had been a quiet election campaign to date essentially ground to
    a halt as news of the shooting spread. The six other presidential
    challenges, along with the incumbent seeking re-election, cancelled
    public appearances. Whether that campaign suspension proves prolonged
    could depend on the Constitutional Court and Hayrikian himself.

    Under Article 52 of Armenia's constitution, a presidential election
    can be postponed for two weeks "[s]hould one of the presidential
    candidates face insurmountable obstacles." If the candidate in
    question does not recover sufficiently during that period of time to
    continue his or her campaign, the vote would take place 40 days after
    "the expiration of the two-week period."

    For a delay to occur, "the candidate or his/her trustee should apply
    to the Constitutional Court and submit the facts about the
    'insurmountable obstacles,' after which the Court will decide whether
    they are insurmountable or not," explained constitutional law expert
    Vardan Ayvazian.

    Hayrikian's campaign representatives announced that a decision would
    be made February 4 on whether or not to petition the court to delay
    the election. According to some news reports, Hayrikian told President
    Sargsyan that he was inclined to seek a two-week delay.

    Political analysts say the incident will impact Armenia's otherwise
    peaceful presidential campaign, but they are reluctant to predict
    precisely how. One of seven opposition candidates to President
    Sargsyan, the odds-on favorite, Hayrikian has garnered well under 5
    percent support in opinion polls.

    This is not, however, the first attack against Hayrikian, who has,
    according to campaign staff, encountered six such attempts in the
    past, including three attempted shootings in 1991 inside the state
    radio company.

    Autos figured in the other three reported attempts. In 1992, he
    asserted that someone sabotaged his car tires in an attempt to induce
    a fatal accident while driving on a mountainous road heading into the
    disputed Nagorno-Karbakh territory. In 1995, he survived an attempted
    drive-by shooting near his house. And, finally, in 1996, he discovered
    "a huge, poisonous snake" in his car while driving to Artashat, a town
    in southeastern Armenia.

    Foreign-relations coordinator Karo Yeghnukian attributed Hayrikian's
    survival of these reported incidents to "fate" and "a miracle."

    Hayrikian's daughter, Nare Hayrikian, said her father's in-depth
    involvement with Armenia's independence movement during the Soviet era
    (he spent six years in exile in Siberia) motivated the attacks against
    him in the 1990s. "He knows too much," she said.

    By contrast, Yeghnukian is convinced that this latest shooting was
    motivated by Hayrikian's candidate status alone. "Such a frivolous
    attempt is usually implemented or ordered by weighty powers," he
    conjectured. "This is not accidental and, for sure, not personal."

    Some in Armenia have expressed skepticism about the incident,
    suggesting on social media networks, including Facebook, that it was,
    in essence, a publicity stunt designed to boost Hayrikian's chances at
    the polls. Former Interior Minister Suren Abrahamian dismissed such
    speculation, reasoning that if it had been a set-up, the shooter
    "wouldn't have shot in such a vital area," where a bullet "might have
    damaged his lungs, heart."

    The most immediate result of the shooting, opined one analyst, could
    the influence it has on voters, who still remember the violence that
    left 10 people dead in clashes between police and opposition
    protesters after Armenia's 2008 presidential election. "This is aimed
    against society, to create and deepen the atmosphere of fear,"
    commented Edgar Vardanian of the Armenian Center for National and
    International Studies.

    Editor's note:
    Gayane Abrahamyan is a reporter for ArmeniaNow.com in Yerevan.

    http://www.eurasianet.org/node/66494

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