Nagorno-Karabakh: Legislative Polls Trigger Political Tensions
By Jean-Christophe Peuch

Voting in Nagorno-Karabakh on 19 June

The Nagorno-Karabakh region on 19 June held its fourth parliamentary
election since it seceded from Soviet Azerbaijan in 1988. Early
results show forces loyal to the ruling administration set to hold an
overwhelming majority of seats. Tension in the separatist enclave is
brewing as the opposition is threatening to boycott the new parliament
amid accusations of ballot fraud.

Prague, 22 June 2005 (RFE/RL) — According to the Central Election
Commission’s latest returns today, President Arkadii Ghukasian’s
DemocraticParty of Artsakh — as Nagorno-Karabakh is known in Armenian
— will have 12 of the separatist region’s 33 parliamentary seats.

An allied party, Free Motherland (Azat Hayrenik), took 10
seats. Another eight went to candidates not affiliated with any
political grouping, but thought to be loyal to Ghukasian.

That left Ghukasian’s foes with just three seats. It was a
surprisingly poor performance, especially since many in Karabakh
expected the front-runner tobe the opposition alliance made of the
Armenian Revolutionary Federation, or Dashnaktsutiun, and the Movement
88 alliance.

Movement 88 Deputy Chairman Gegham Baghdasarian on 20 June struck an
ironic note while accusing the authorities of vote-rigging. `In my
view, there were fair and transparent irregularities,’ he said.

Baghdasarian yesterday indicated that the opposition might boycott the
new parliament. He also alleged that authorities had ordered a
physical assaulton one Dashnaktsutiun candidate.

Dashnaktsutiun’s Armen Sargsian, whose party had eight seats in
theprevious legislature, also claimed vote fraud. He pledged to fight
Ghukasian’s government through constitutional means, but said
the opposition would not take to the streets to challenge the election
outcome. `Legislative polls in Karabakh — like the rest of the
domestic political arena — are absolutely unable to influence the
negotiation process because Nagorno-Karabakh is not part of the peace
talks.” – Fatullayev

`Our election bloc will continue to defend its program and do its
utmost so that stability in the country is maintained,’ Sargsian said.

A former education minister, Sargsian was sacked last December. His
dismissal put a formal end to the cooperation between Dashnaktsutiun
and the Ghukasian administration.

The government denies any foul play in the 19 June vote.

The Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), which
does not recognize the existence of the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh,
did not monitor the vote. However, a number of private organizations
and Western rights groups sent election observers. Also present to
monitor the polls was a group of deputies from the lower house of
Russia’s parliament, the State Duma.

President Arkadii Ghukasian voting in 2002 presidential election (EPA)
Addressing reporters in Stepanakert on 20 June, Russian Duma Deputy
Konstantin Zatulin said the polls were fair and
transparent. Individual Western observers also described the elections
as generally fair.

Armenia’s Foreign Ministry on 20 June hailed the polls, describing
them as ` an important step toward reinforcing democratic institutions
and traditionsin Nagorno-Karabakh.’

Yet, not everyone outside Armenia and the separatist region agrees
with this assessment. Eynulla Fatullayev, the editor in chief of the
Baku-based `Real Azerbaijan’ electronic newspaper, told our
correspondent he did notexpect the 19 June vote to end with such a
massive defeat for the opposition.

`To be honest, I’m quite surprised by these results. After meeting
with the leaders of the opposition and studying public opinion in
Karabakh, I had predicted that the opposition would make a much better
performance. I had the impression that the Movement 88 and
Dashnaktsutiun parties — especially Movement 88 — would grab if not
an overwhelming majority of parliamentary seats, at least a
significant number of deputy mandates. But unfortunately — or
fortunately, I don’t know — my prediction proved incorrect. I don’t
have very much information yet, but from what I already know there
were serious violationsand irregularities in a number of
constituencies,’ Fatullayev said.

Fatullayev in February traveled to Karabakh and the Azerbaijani
territories ethnic Armenian troops have been occupying for the past 12
years. He was the first Azerbaijani reporter to visit some of these
areas since the 1994 truce that formally ended the war between Baku
and Yerevan over Karabakh.

In the Karabakh capital of Stepanakert, Fatullayev met with civil
rights activists and representatives of both the separatist leadership
and the opposition. After that, he said, he came to believe the
political situationin the enclave had dramatically changed since his
previous visit five years earlier and that the separatist regime had
seriously improved its democratic credentials.

As evidence to his claims, Fatullayev cited the August 2004 municipal
polls that were won by the opposition and saw Movement 88 leader
Eduard Aghabekian win the Stepanakert mayoralty over the well-funded
government candidate.

Fatullayev admits that a number of factors — such as disunity among
the opposition — may have to some degree influenced the outcome of
the 19 Junepolls. However, he believes vote-rigging and the control
exerted by the Ghukasian administration over the enclave’s
administrative resources are mainly responsible for the defeat of
antigovernment parties.

`In all likelihood the outcome of the political struggle was [most]
influenced by falsifications. The opposition is more popular in
Karabakh and the population trusts it more than it trusts the existing
administration. Despite the important successes achieved by the
current authorities in transforming the authoritarian and military
regime that existed previously, the population is expecting more
changes, more reforms,’ Fatullayev said.

Baku has described the Karabakh polls as illegitimate. Yesterday, it
said they were likely to undermine the OSCE-sponsored peace talks with
Armenia over Karabakh.

But Fatullayev disagrees with this assessment. `Legislative polls in
Karabakh — like the rest of the domestic political arena — are
absolutely unable to influence the negotiation process because
Nagorno-Karabakh is not part of the peace talks,” he said. “Therefore
I believe [the 19 June] polls will have no effect, neither positive,
nor negative.’

Fatullayev, however, argues that the only significant change that
could have occurred with the Karabakh opposition’s coming to power
would have concerned the relationship between Stepanakert and
Yerevan. He believes Movement 88 and Dashnaktsutiun would have sought
to moderate Armenia’s influence onthe enclave through the
establishment of what he describes as `horizontal’ ties with Yerevan
in place of the existing `vertical’ ones.

Meanwhile, the outcome of the elections has put Armenia’s
Dashnaktsutiun in an awkward position. The party, which is a member of
Armenia’s ruling coalition, has so far refrained from backing the
fraud claims made by its Karabakh counterpart. Despite the party’s
loose organization, its Armenian leaders may find themselves in an
even deeper quandary if a political crisis breaks out in Karabakh.

(Ruzanna Khachatrian of RFE/RL’s Armenian Service contributed to this
report.)