ARMENIAN OPPOSITION ATTACKS "CRIMINAL ELEMENTS" IN GOVERNMENT
By Emil Danielyan

Eurasia Daily Monitor, DC
Oct 5 2006

Armenia’s main opposition forces have opened a new front in their
standoff with the government, launching a joint movement against
what they claim is the growing role of "criminal elements" in the
country’s political life. Influential Defense Minister Serge Sarkisian
and other leaders of the governing Republican Party (HHK), the main
targets of the campaign, have dismissed the accusations as an attempt
to discredit them ahead of approaching parliamentary elections.

For weeks this issue has dominated the discourse of the country’s
leading politicians, media commentators, and even prominent
intellectuals. The opposition allegations were sparked by a string of
high-profile murders and a recent influx of influential, but less than
law-abiding, individuals into the HHK. The latter development resulted
from the party’s far-reaching political alliance with Sarkisian,
which was formalized in late July.

Although the HHK continues to be officially headed by Prime Minister
Andranik Markarian, local analysts increasingly regard Sarkisian
as its de facto top leader. The defense minister, seen as President
Robert Kocharian’s most likely successor, is believed to have already
begun preparations for the next presidential election, due in 2008.

That vote will be preceded by parliamentary elections early next
year. Sarkisian has repeatedly implied that the HHK’s victory in
the polls is essential for his presidential ambitions. To that end,
he has bolstered Armenia’s largest establishment party, which already
controls many central and local government bodies, with over a dozen
loyal wealthy businessmen. Most of them represent government-connected
clans that hold sway in various areas of the country and have bribed
or bullied voters in previous Armenian elections.

Some are better known to the public by their notorious nicknames. By
"criminal elements" the Armenian opposition usually means them. "We now
see that mobsters or good fellows, as people call them, are entering
parties," said former parliament speaker Artur Baghdasarian.

"By beating and terrorizing people they are trying to further their
interests. A country like that has no future." His Orinats Yerkir
(Country of Law) party was expelled from Kocharian’s governing
coalition in May, charged on August 12.

The allegations were picked up by other prominent oppositionists
who link the HHK’s increased reliance on "criminal elements" with an
apparent upsurge in the number of contract killings reported in Armenia
this year. Most of those crimes were committed in broad daylight and
have not yet been solved by the police. Their most recent victim, a
high-ranking official at the Armenian government’s main tax collection
agency, was blown up in his own car in downtown Yerevan on September
6. The car bombing came less than a month after the brutal murder
of a local businessman and the fatal roadside shooting of a reputed
crime figure that left one innocent bystander dead. A stray bullet
also killed an innocent woman in June when gunmen chased and shot
dead a notorious "good fellow" in the city’s western Malatia-Sebastia
district.

The police have urged the public not to draw far-reaching conclusions
from the killings, arguing that Armenia continues to have one of
the lowest crime rates in the former Soviet Union. Sarkisian, for
his part, has rounded on the detractors of his party’s important
new recruits. The fact that they usually lack education, use slangy
phrases, and have mobster-style nicknames does not mean they are
criminals, he claimed.

However, the opposition attacks continued unabated, and on September
28 15 opposition parties launched an "anti-criminal movement" that
is supposed to counter the "criminalization of the political field."

According to the movement’s joint declaration, "Criminal acts in the
country are committed with the connivance and direct encouragement
of the Robert Kocharian-Serge Sarkisian duo." The initiative was
joined the next day by Intellectual Forum, a radical organization
uniting prominent artists and intellectuals critical of the Kocharian
administration. In a written statement, they urged Armenians to
"declare war on this regime and return power seized by criminal
traitors to the people."

Just how the declared "anti-criminal movement" intends to achieve its
objectives is unclear, though. Its leaders admitted that they have not
even begun discussing concrete plans. Uneasy relationships among them
may well scupper those actions. In particular, some oppositionists
make no secret of their distrust of the movement’s main initiator:
Aram Karapetian, the outspoken leader of the Nor Zhamanakner (New
Times) party known for his Russian connections.

While sharing the opposition’s concerns, some Armenian newspapers
have speculated that the initiative was masterminded by Russia. The
daily Aravot said on September 18 that a senior Kremlin official,
Modest Kolerov, had recently visited Yerevan for that purpose.

Another paper, Zhamanak Yerevan, claimed last week that Moscow is
preparing the ground for installing a more pro-Russian regime in
Armenia. A group of other renowned intellectuals more sympathetic to
the Armenian leaderships apparently had Karapetian in mind when they
warned their pro-opposition colleagues, in a September 22 statement,
against being manipulated by "foreign agents."

(Haykakan Zhamanak, September 28-29, September 23; Zhamanak Yerevan,
September 28; Aravot, September 18; RFE/RL Armenia Report, September 6,
August 14)