ARMENIAN SPEAKER OUSTED FROM RULING COALITION
By Emil Danielyan

Eurasia Daily Monitor, DC
May 17 2006

Armenia’s President Robert Kocharian has banished one of the three
political parties represented in his government after it appeared to
threaten his reported plans to hand over power to a staunch loyalist in
2008. The Orinats Yerkir (Country of Law) party officially announced
its withdrawal from the ruling coalition on May 12. Its ambitious
leader, Artur Baghdasarian, also resigned as speaker of the Armenian
parliament.

The move followed mass defections of lawmakers affiliated with
Orinats Yerkir, an exodus widely believed to have been engineered
by the presidential administration. Baghdasarian’s party boasted the
second-largest faction in the National Assembly as recently as last
month, controlling 20 of its 131 seats. It shrank by almost half in
a matter of one week.

The official reasons for the party’s ouster are its socioeconomic
and foreign policy differences with Kocharian and the two other
coalition partners. Both sides have been reluctant to elaborate on
those differences. The coalition has been beset by internal squabbles
ever since its formation in June 2003. Much of the bickering has
been caused by Orinats Yerkir’s periodic public criticism of the
government, a tactic that has been particularly galling for Prime
Minister Andranik Markarian and his Republican Party of Armenia
(HHK). The latter has also had an uneasy rapport with the third
governing party, the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (HHD).

Kocharian has repeatedly intervened to salvage the three-party marriage
of convenience that has enabled him to deflect popular disaffection
with the government and somehow mitigate his lack of legitimacy. As
recently as February 6, the HHK, the HHD, and Orinats Yerkir vowed
(apparently under pressure from Kocharian) to continue to stick
together “at least” until next year’s parliamentary election. In a
joint statement, they also agreed to show “mutual respect for each
other and each other’s positions.”

However, the truce did not prove long lasting, with Orinats Yerkir
lashing out at the Armenian government (in which it was represented
with three ministers) on April 11 over its shady privatization policies
(see EDM, April 19). The attack drew an angry rebuttal from Markarian
and his loyalists. Baghdasarian further raised eyebrows in Yerevan with
an April 19 interview with a leading German newspaper, Frankfurter
Allgemeine Zeitung, in which he contradicted the official line by
calling for Armenia’s eventual accession to NATO. More importantly,
he also implied that Kocharian’s hotly disputed reelection in 2003
was fraudulent.

The extraordinary confession (or a slip of the tongue) seems to have
been the final straw for Kocharian, who was reportedly behind the
devastating defections from the Orinats Yerkir faction in parliament
that began on May 5. The defectors, all of them wealthy businessmen
dependent on government connections, offered no clear explanation
for their actions. But newspaper reports citing coalition leaders
said the exodus was masterminded by Kocharian with the aim of forcing
Orinats Yerkir out of the government.

Hayots Ashkhar, a pro-Kocharian daily, indicated on May 15 that
the Armenian president has lost patience with Orinats Yerkir’s
notorious populism, widely attributed to its strong showing in
the last parliamentary polls. “It is more than weird to be part
of the government; have a number of government members, a myriad
of various-caliber officials, protected and reliable businesses;
and play the old tune,” the paper wrote. “This is a violation of the
rules of the game. One deserves to be severely punished for that.”

Interestingly, it was Kocharian who went to great lengths in June
2003 to get parliament to elect Baghdasarian as its speaker, fuelling
speculation that the then 34-year-old politician was being groomed
to become Armenia’s next president. However, it has since become
evident that Kocharian’s preferred successor is his most trusted and
powerful lieutenant, Defense Minister Serge Sarkisian. Some local
commentators suggest that the two men were incensed not so much
by Baghdasarian’s enduring populism as his far-reaching political
ambitions that could interfere with their anticipated handover of
power in 2008. The outgoing Armenian speaker has already attracted
Western interest in his personality with his pro-democracy statements
and stated strong commitment to Armenia’s “integration into Europe
and the Euro-Atlantic family.”

“Artur Baghdasarian has felt like Robert Kocharian’s successor and
begun his pre-election campaign of late,” the independent newspaper
168 Zham wrote on May 11. “In the process, he was doing everything
to distance himself from the current authorities thanks to whom he
had become the number two official in the Republic of Armenia in 2003.”

Announcing his resignation on May 12, the Orinats Yerkir leader
was anxious not to blame Kocharian for the dramatic collapse of
his parliamentary faction, saying vaguely that the Orinats Yerkir
defectors faced pressure “from all sides.” His claims that Orinats
Yerkir is “becoming an opposition force” are therefore unlikely to
be taken at face value by leaders of Armenia’s main opposition parties.

Some of them have made it clear that Baghdasarian cannot join the
opposition camp unless he publicly “repents” his association with
Kocharian.

Baghdasarian has owed his strong electoral performances to a canny
combination of opposition-style rhetoric with covert cooperation from
the ruling regime and wealthy businessmen hungry for political power.

Their defections and his subsequent ouster from the government mean
that Orinats Yerkir will have to operate in a more hostile environment
and with far fewer financial resources.

(Aravot, May 13; Hayots Ashkhar, May 12; 168 Zham, May 11; RFE/RL
Armenia Report, February 6)