Eurasia Daily Monitor, DC
The Jamestown Foundation
Sept 30 2005

LOCAL ELECTIONS EXPOSE WEAKNESS OF ARMENIAN CIVIL SOCIETY

By Emil Danielyan

Friday, September 30, 2005

Armenia’s ongoing local election season is exposing the degradation
of its democratic institutions as well as the weakness of its civil
society. The polls, effectively boycotted by the Armenian opposition,
are essentially an intra-government affair, with rival wealthy
individuals seeking to further their business interests through
control of local government bodies. Their handling by the authorities
bodes ill for the freedom and fairness of the crucial constitutional
referendum due in November.

The electoral process affecting the vast majority of the country’s
930 rural and urban communities began this spring and will peak in
October. The most important of those communities are the ten
administrative districts in the capital, Yerevan. Most of them have
already elected their chief executives and city councilmen.

As was the case in the past, Armenia’s leading opposition parties
have shown little interest in the local races. Opposition leaders
claim that they cannot be democratic as long as President Robert
Kocharian and his allies remain in power. They also say that local
communities do not have any significant powers in Armenia’s highly
centralized system of governance.

The only place where Armenia’s largest opposition group, the Justice
bloc, has fielded a candidate so far was Yerevan’s central Kentron
district, whose incumbent alderman, Gagik Beglarian, is a staunch
Kocharian loyalist. Yet even there opposition leaders effectively
avoided campaigning for their female candidate, Ruzan Khachatrian.
She therefore had no chance to defeat her rival, who had the backing
of the entire state apparatus and controlled the local election
commissions. Official results of the September 25 ballot showed
Beglarian winning 86% of the vote. Although the opposition candidate
claimed that the race was decided by multiple voting and vote buying
in some Kentron neighborhoods, election observers from the Council of
Europe said they did not witness serious irregularities.

Commentators widely criticized the opposition’s indifference to the
most important local poll. Even a leader of the governing Republican
Party of Armenia (HHK) chided the opposition leaders for “throwing a
teammate into the lion’s mouth.” Iravunk, a newspaper critical of the
authorities, warned on September 27 that the opposition tactic had
made it easier for the ruling regime to push through its
controversial package of constitutional amendments at the November
referendum. But another paper, Azg, pointed out that the newly
elected or reelected local government chiefs will lack the motivation
to strive for a “yes” vote at the referendum with the same zeal.

What ordinary Armenians think of the constitutional amendments is
seen as secondary. The key factor is the authorities’ so-called
“administrative resources” that have been heavily used in all
Armenian elections over the past decade. Tactics include direct
involvement of government and law-enforcement bodies in campaigning,
aggressive televised propaganda, crude electoral fraud, and vote
buying. The last technique is becoming the defining feature of
Armenian local elections. The fact that their voter turnout is
usually well below 50% makes the practice particularly effective.

Vote bribes are what apparently enabled a 26-year-old man, Mher
Hovannisian, to get “elected” as alderman of Yerevan’s poorest
district, Nubarashen, on September 18. The youngster’s main merit was
the fact that his businessman father is a friend of one of Armenia’s
most powerful “oligarchs,” Gagik Tsarukian. Local, mostly elderly
voters admitted to journalists that they were paid 5,000 drams ($11)
to vote for him.

The Nubarashen election followed a pattern that has taken root in
most urban communities. They are typically run by wealthy
government-connected individuals who hold sway in a particular area
and are undeterred by their lack of constitutional powers (an elected
prefect can be sacked by a government-appointed regional governor
practically at will). Their affiliation with governing political
parties (usually the HHK) is largely nominal and their bonds with
senior government officials or millionaire “oligarchs” are much
stronger. The key preoccupation of most community chiefs is to create
favorable conditions for their and their cronies’ businesses. The
government office also gives them additional protection against
corrupt tax and law-enforcement bodies.

The local bosses primarily rely on their government connections and
financial resources to win elections. Quasi-criminal elements often
act as their foot soldiers, mobilizing, bribing, and bullying voters.
The Armenian Revolutionary Federation, another pro-presidential
party, has repeatedly expressed concern about the growing influence
of what it calls “apolitical elements” in the country. One of its
leaders warned in February of the possibility of armed clashes
between rival clans during the local elections. As if to prove him
right, on September 24 the mayor of a small town near Yerevan shot
and killed a local businessman who had campaigned for his main
election rival. The shooting took place on a street in broad
daylight.

It is highly doubtful that Kocharian or his most powerful associate,
Defense Minister Serge Sarkisian, will take any action against the
corrupt local clans. They are one of the pillars of Armenia’s deeply
flawed political system. The ruling regime needs them more than any
of the three parties represented in Kocharian’s government to rig
presidential and parliamentary elections.

The fact that the increasingly entrenched clans are tightening their
grip on local governments with little resistance from political
parties, non-governmental organizations, and media speaks volumes
about the state of civil society in Armenia. It also dims prospects
for the country’s democratization. That most people do not care who
runs their district or town and that some of them are ready to sell
their votes should also be a cause for serious concern among those
who promote political reform in Armenia.

(Iravunk, Azg, Haykakan Zhamanak, September 27; RFE/RL Armenia
Report, February 21, September 19 and 26)

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress