ARMENIA GETS US AID GRANT, PROMISES ELECTION REFORMS
By David Gollust

Voice of America
March 28 2006

State Department

Armenia has become the eighth country to receive a grant under the
Bush administration’s Millennium Challenge foreign aid program.

Accepting the $235-million grant at a State Department ceremony Monday,
Armenia’s foreign minister said his government will be responsive to
international criticism of its handling of a constitutional referendum
last November.

Condoleezza Rice with the Armenian delegation at the State Department
in Washington The Millennium Challenge program, a key initiative of
the Bush administration, makes aid money contingent on recipient
countries’ meeting commitments to democratization, open markets,
and fighting corruption.

In accepting the $235-million Millennium Challenge grant to fight
rural poverty in his country, Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian
pledged that his government will take action to address international
concerns about the constitutional vote.

The United States and European countries were among the critics of
the November 27 referendum on a package of constitutional amendments.

Armenian opposition parties challenged official results that said 65
per cent of eligible voters had turned out and approved the package
by a 93 percent margin. Council of Europe observers said the vote
had been marred by fraud and ballot-box stuffing.

The semi-private Millennium Challenge Corporation, which administers
the aid program, reiterated U.S. concern when it announced the
five-year grant in December.

At Monday’s ceremony attended by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice,
the Armenian foreign minister said corrective steps are already under
way to assure the fairness of legislative elections in May of 2007
and a presidential vote in 2008:

“Our task until then is to partner with the United States and European
governments to implement the necessary corrective steps to improve
the conditions necessary for an honest and fair expression of peoples’
voices,” said Vartan Oskanian. “In this regard, we welcome the American
proposal for certain structural reforms and education and public
outreach efforts. We have already begun the process of verifying
voter lists. We are making progress in reforming the electoral law
with the active participation and agreement of all political forces
in our parliament.”

For her part, Secretary Rice noted that Armenia had acknowledged the
“difficulties” of last year’s vote and promised corrective actions.

She said the United States stands ready to help insure that the
legislative and presidential elections are free and fair.

The Armenia program aims at helping the country’s rural poor by
building nearly 1,000 kilometers of roads in the countryside and
improving irrigation and water distribution systems.

Foreign Minister Oskanian said two-thirds of rural Armenians do not
have access to central water systems, and efforts to move crops to
market are hampered by a poor secondary road system.

Nonetheless, he said despite the unresolved conflict with neighboring
Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh and other problems, including a lack
of mineral wealth, the Armenian government’s liberal policies have
produced the highest economic growth rates in the region.

At the grant ceremony, attended by leaders of the Armenian-American
community, among others, he pledged that the process of democratic
and economic reform in his country is “irreversible.”

The grant to Armenia is the second-largest thus far under the
Millennium Challenge program. It brings the total amount of funds
committed to $1.5 billion to a total of eight countries, mainly in
Africa and Latin America.

Started in 2004, the program got off to a slow start as would-be
recipient-countries wrestled with complicated eligibility rules,
but it has gained momentum after a personnel shakeup last year.

The Bush administration had hoped to be able to dispense $5 billion
a year under the program but congressional funding has fallen well
short of that goal.