ARMENIA’S YEZIDIS SPLIT OVER ELECTIONS
By Astghik Bedevian

Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
March 22 2007

The approaching elections seem to be deepening divisions within
Armenia’s sizable Yezidi community whose often competing leaders have
pledged allegiance to three different parties running for parliament.

The country’s largest ethnic minority, which numbers an estimated
40,000 members, has been increasingly courted by some Armenian
parties in recent years. Three of them are particularly active in
doing that, having included prominent Yezidis on the lists of their
election candidates.

A newspaper report last month said that Samvel Babayan, the former
military leader of Nagorno-Karabakh, has been named an honorary member
of a Yerevan-based organization that claims to represent Yezidis
scattered around the world. Its chairman, Aziz Tamoyan, confirmed the
report on Thursday, but insisted that the World Yezidi Union did not
thereby endorse Babayan and his Dashink (Alliance) party for the May
12 parliamentary elections.

"If I make an endorsement of a particular political leader, I will
spread feud within our community," Tamoyan said. He said he knows
which party most Armenian Yezidis, some of whom consider themselves
non-Muslim Kurds, will vote for but will refrain from naming it.

However, the fact that Tamoyan’s son, Surik Hajoyan, is 13th on
Dashink’s electoral list is hardly accidental. Also, a community
newspaper edited by Tamoyan recently ran a front-page article about
Babayan that cast the retired Karabakh Armenian general in a highly
positive light.

Another Yezidi leader, Yerevan’s former Deputy Chief Prosecutor Tital
Jndoyan, is running for the National Assembly on the ticket of the
Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK), one of the election frontrunners
supporting President Robert Kocharian. "I think that most members
of our Yezidi community will vote for the Prosperous Armenia Party,"
Jndoyan told RFE/RL.

Two other Yezidis, one of them also a community leader, are high on
the proportional representation list of another populist party led
by Tigran Karapetian, the owner and top host of the ALM television
station. Karapetian often invites Yezidi children and youths to sing on
his live folk shows that are popular with rural residents of Armenia.

Tamoyan admitted that he and many other Yezidis hold the ALM boss in
great esteem. But he said this does not mean they will necessarily
vote for Karapetian’s People’s Party in large numbers.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress