"WE ARE INTERESTED IN THE PROCESS AND NOT THE OUTCOME OF THE ELECTIONS"
MEDIAMAX
Armenian News Agency
14.04.07
The exclusive interview of U.S. Charge d’Affaires Anthony F. Godfrey
and USAID/Armenia Mission Director Robin Phillips to Mediamax news
agency
– For the first time, the package of the U.S. proposals on securing
free and fair elections in Armenia was presented in October of
2005. Then the package consisted of 9 directions and was estimated at
$6 million. If the package has not undergone any changes, I would ask
you to tell us what has been done as to each of the nine directions
(National Voters List; Election Administration; Voter Information;
Electoral Adjudication; Democratic Political Culture; Polling Capacity;
Political Parties; Election Monitoring; Independent Media Coverage).
Anthony Godfrey: Well, we’ve been very active in all of these
different areas.
Certainly, the National Voters List has been very much covered in the
press. A lot of what we are doing is actually advice. We are giving
the Government of Armenia advice first in drafting the legislation,
and I think we’ve had very good input into that process and we are
pleased that many of our views were considered by the drafters of
the legislation.
We’ve been working with the OSCE ODHIR (Office of Democratic
Institutions and Human Rights) and Armenian Central Election Commission
(CEC) on the implementation of the new Voters Registry–again giving
an awful lot of checks and diagnostics. We organized a study tour
to Estonia for people from ODHIR and from the Election Commission,
and we’ve transferred some equipment to people who are going to be
implementing this.
Robin Phillips: Together with the CEC we formed voter list advisory
committees, whose volunteers have gone around and knocked on doors
and encouraged people to look at the voter list and make sure that
their registration is accurate.
Godfrey: On Election Administration itself, again we worked with the
Government on changing the Electoral Code, but we’re also working
very closely on training members of the Electoral Commission at both
the territorial level and at the provincial level. That’s not all
we’re doing, of course. On Voter Information, we have worked with the
organizations that are preparing guides to the National Assembly for
use in voter education, for preparing public service announcements,
and inserts in the newspapers. And we are very proud of our activities
there. On Electoral Adjudication, this has been the work of several
of our implementing partners, including the American Bar Association.
Phillips: We’ve held several programs on election fraud with different
parts of the government, including a study tour to Washington,
D.C. and West Virginia.
Godfrey: Yes, that’s right. These folks went to Washington and
Virginia.
And also, we launched that program by bringing people down here from
the Baltic States to share their relevant experience here. And we’ve
made it clear to the Government of Armenia and to our partners in the
Prosecutor’s Office and in the Electoral Commissions that there are a
lot of questions among Armenians–that is what the polls tell us–that
they don’t believe that cases of fraud will be prosecuted. So what we
are trying to do is to give them tools to investigate and prosecute
election fraud, which happens everywhere in the world, not just in
Armenia. The perception by Armenians that there is no punishment for
this is something that we are looking to have them address.
On Democratic Political Culture, we’ve been very active in allocating
grants to local Non Governmental Organizations, and I know we’ll
talk about that in a little greater detail as things move along. I
think there will be an awful lot of activities as the campaign moves
forward, but getting people involved and getting people education
are very important key issues.
Phillips: Another key point here is that all the presented programs
had to be completely unbiased. We are watching very, very carefully
to make sure that it is the case.
Godfrey: On Polling Capacity, we’ve conducted, as you know, a number
of polls using the International Republican Institute, Gallup, and an
Armenian polling firm. And, I believe that the trainings that IRI and
Gallup have carried out here, and the discussions they have carried out
here, have been very useful in not just only raising polling capacity,
but improving the ability of political leaders and political party
leaders to respond to the needs of the voters. And that is really
what we are trying to encourage here, is to make the campaign less
about personalities and more about the issues and the ability of the
political parties and political leaders to respond to the issues.
Phillips: What IRI and Gallup and ASA have found is that, after the
first polling results, there was much more interest from the political
parties than there was during the first one. So, clearly the people
took notice of that. That was exactly what we wanted, that people took
notice of the issues and not the personalities, as Anthony mentioned.
Godfrey: In Political Parties work, we are interested in the process
and not the outcome of the elections. We are trying to engage more
young people and more women in the political process here, and I think
we were to a certain degree successful. I won’t beat around the bush,
and I will say there has been some hesitance on the part of some
political parties to engage with the people who have been working on
these projects, but I think that after the upcoming parliamentary
elections more people will recognize that we are interested only
in process, in making it more open, and we are not interested in the
outcome. This is a sensitive issue in Armenia, and we won’t be involved
in any way in trying to force or to predict an outcome. Election
Monitoring, I think, this is something that hasn’t been as obvious
yet, because it is only really going to be getting going now. But we
are working with the domestic monitoring group, "It’s Your Choice,"
and we are very proud of how they have developed as an NGO.
We were very pleased to see that the very first observer credential
issued to any observer in Armenian was "It’s Your Choice," and we
expect them to be very active all around Armenia–we are looking
forward to seeing their objective views of how things went.
And finally, on Independent Media Coverage, this is an expansion of
programs that USAID already has on-going, but it is focusing on work
on journalism here in Armenia. In addition to that, at the end of last
year, and in fact, to cover U.S. elections, there was a spectacular
program for both Armenian print and broadcast media representatives
that was carried out through the State Department’s Public Affairs
Section. It was a good experience to see how the elections are covered
in the United States, and we are very proud of that program as well.
– The sum of $6 million often appears in the media. However, the
mechanisms for allocating the funds were not fully presented. Which
part of the given sum will be allocated for the parliamentary elections
and which part for the presidential elections in 2008? Which part
went to NGOs and which to the state structures?
Godfrey: Well, it’s a tough question, and one that is harder than you
think. First of all, not much is going directly to the government. Most
is going in the form of advice and consultations and work. There is
some money that is going to support purchasing election equipment,
study tours, and the like. But the grant pool for non-governmental
organizations in Armenia for the parliamentary elections is less than
$1 million. These grants are relatively small and targeted, and we
can talk about that in more detail, but in fact most of the funds
that we allocated for this democracy promotion strategy were in fact
allocated for the parliamentary elections–more than we originally
expected. We found interesting and important things to do, and we
found good partners to do the work. So most of the funds are being
expended in advance of the parliamentary elections.
Phillips: We have expended more or a greater portion of those funds,
but as we look forward beyond the parliamentary elections, if there
are additional good ideas that we need to fund, we might attract
additional funds.
– Would you please name a few projects that were proposed by NGOs
and that received funding?
Godfrey: I think all of them have already started. 27 projects were
awarded grants cover a wide range of activities, including raising the
awareness of the general public and specific groups, such as youth,
first time voters, women, disabled persons, and soldiers on voting
procedures and other election specific procedures. They are working
through media, public and cultural events, print materials, on-line
portals, parties and candidate debates and forums, and some election
day observation missions in the selected areas. So this is what is
the thrust of the grant, or the bulk of the one million dollars. The
kind of things that we are not funding are either things that were
identified as inappropriate–I am sure that you remember some of them
that were in the press. For example, people expected the United States
government to pay for their political advertising.
Phillips: Another important aspect was that we were looking for the
projects to cover the entire country. What we wanted to end up with was
a broad group of activities that covered a broad part of the country,
and were not concentrated in certain urban areas, like the capital.
– What is the mechanism of monitoring the use of the allocated funds?
Phillips: In some cases, we get messages from individuals who say –
"Hey, this activity might be looking like a little bit political." And
if we get messages like that, we contact our program managers, or
Counterpart International, and they go out and look at what is really
going on.
Godfrey: Our programs are scrutinized not just in Armenia, but also
in the United States. And we are therefore very careful in monitoring
them for correct implementation, not just for election grants, but
for all programs.
– Will exit polls be conducted during the upcoming elections, or
any other initiatives on alternative calculation of votes within the
framework of projects funded by the USA?
Godfrey: It’s a good question, but frankly we don’t have plans for
nation-wide exit polling or alternative calculations.And frankly,
exit polls have been problematic in the United States and elsewhere,
largely due to technical problems, which have raised issues of their
accuracy. But of course, the U.S. supports fully the work of the OSCE
Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights and U.S. observers
will be taking part in the short-term mission, and we have an expert
in the long-term mission. We are confident that our view of how the
elections went will coincide with the OSCE ODIHR’s view.
– Are you satisfied with the level of cooperation that was shown by
political parties?
Godfrey: As I said earlier, we recognize that there was a hesitance
by some political parties to engage with us, and we hope that in the
future people will understand that we are interested in the process
and not the outcome. But we do know that some political parties
engaged with us, especially in promoting the participation of women
and youth in political parties. And I think that when the press of the
parliamentary elections is over, they will recognize that it remains
an asset that they can take advantage of and their experience here
that political parties can learn from the United States. And I hope
that we’ll be able to restore more trust in our objectivity.
Phillips: It has emerged that approximately 20% of the party lists
are women. So we should have a National Assembly with a better
gender balance.
– What is your assessment of the activities of the Armenian broadcast
media in the pre-election period?
Godfrey: Well, we know that most Armenians receive their information
from the broadcast media, and we expressed our concerns earlier;
I’ve done so on a number of occasions myself. We talked about how
important it is for candidates to have equal access to the broadcast
media and not to have any restrictions put on them.
It really is too early to say what the end conclusion will be, but
I was encouraged by what I read about the assessments of the Yerevan
Press Club’s early monitoring, and Mr. Navasardian’s views were fairly
clearly expressed–optimistic early on–that opposition candidates
did seem to have more access to the television. Now the OSCE Office
of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights’ long-term observation
mission has a media monitoring group–very active. I was in their
office yesterday and I saw them looking very carefully at all of
the broadcast television stations and logging their activity. And,
in the early days, it is looking better.
We were concerned earlier on, but we will reserve judgment until we
hear from the OSCE observer mission. When we see their next interim
assessment we will certainly be discussing that carefully at the
U.S. Mission here in Yerevan.
– Julie Finley, the U.S. Ambassador to the Organization for Security
and Cooperation in Europe, stated recently in an interview with RFE/RL
that the she was specifically concerned about the prices of political
advertising that were set by Armenia’s broadcasters, and expressed an
opinion that "leaders in countries like Armenia are afraid to make
media available or transparency more prevalent, because they are
afraid of losing their jobs and maybe the opportunity, just perhaps,
of salting away some money in bank accounts in some place". Don’t you
think that such statements, addressed to the leaders of a sovereign
country, are especially counter-productive in the pre-election period?
Godfrey: Well, I share, and I continue to share, Ambassador Finley’s
concern about equal access to the media. And I would like to point
out, as we have since Ambassador Finley’s statement, that a number
of factors have changed the way that the broadcast advertising market
works in Armenia.
Certainly, the dramatic drop in the value of the U.S. dollar compared
to the Armenian Dram, and certainly the increased competitiveness
and the growth in the advertising market in the Republic of Armenia
has had an effect as well. I haven’t seen, frankly, a negative
reaction. Certainly there were questions about it, and we clarified
things. But I think the basis of her statement was one that we’ve
expressed before–that it is so important for free and fair elections
for the media environment to be fair. I think that was the basis for
her statement. I am encouraged by the initial reactions and what we
have seen so far during the campaign period and the time preceding
it – that all candidates seem to have access to television, even in
the news, not just the official campaign advertisings. More balance
is coming into the media environment. So I focus on what is happening
now, and what is likely to continue to take place in future, rather
that on an individual statement.
– What is your assessment of the pre-election situation in Armenia?
Godfrey: It’s early still. There might only be one month left, but
there is still a lot that can happen between now and then. We look
forward to the next OSCE interim assessment. But I can tell you
the thing that we saw most recently is that it appears as though
the candidate and political party registration process went very
well. Again, we will wait for a final judgment until the OSCE report,
but we were very pleased that it went so well and that it doesn’t
appear that there were any political vendettas, or any political
decisions taken to disallow parties or candidates. We were worried
about it, but it appears that it went well.