ORINATS YERKIR ALLEGES GOVERNMENT SURVEILLANCE
By Ruzanna Stepanian

Radio Liberty, Czech Republic
May 9 2007

A close associate of Artur Baghdasarian accused the authorities on
Wednesday of wire-tapping the telephones of the embattled former
parliament speaker and other leaders of his opposition Orinats
Yerkir Party.

Baghdasarian has been on the defensive since the disclosure by a
pro-government newspaper late last month of embarrassing details
of his recent secretly recorded conversation with a senior British
diplomat which focused on the May 12 parliamentary elections.

President Robert Kocharian has said his reported calls for the European
Union to already criticize the Armenian government’s handling of the
vote amounted to high treason. Baghdasarian has rejected the charges,
saying that his dinner meeting with the diplomat was eavesdropped
on by security services as part of a government "smear campaign"
against Orinats Yerkir.

Heghine Bisharian, the number two figure in the party hierarchy,
claimed that the phones of the top Orinats Yerkir figures are also
being illegally wire-tapped by the National Security Service. "I
know that my phone is wire-tapped," she said. "Aren’t they ashamed
of doing that?"

Bisharian could no offer any proof of the allegation and dismissed
suggestions that Orinats Yerkir lodge a complaint with the
authorities. "Who should we complain to?" she asked at a news
conference. "What should we say [to the government?] Punish yourself?"

She went on to allege that the scandal has left the ambitious
ex-speaker’s life "in danger." Orinats Yerkir fears that he might be
the target of an assassination attempt, she added without elaborating.

Baghdasarian has implicitly made similar allegations in some of
his campaign speeches. But in a weekend interview with RFE/RL, he
was reluctant to dwell on them. "I don’t want any of my compatriots
to experience what we have," he said. "I don’t want to talk about
specific examples now."

Orinats Yerkir, which claims to have more than 100,000 members, is one
of the main opposition contenders of the polls not least because of
its young leader’s populist appeal and its well-organized grassroots
structures. Tens of thousands of people have attended campaign rallies
held by the party across the country.

In Bisharian’s words, Orinats Yerkir is now more popular than it
was during the last parliamentary elections when it won 22 percent
of the vote. She said its leaders have received "reports" that the
authorities have instructed election officials to steal votes cast
for their party. "If we establish that that is true, we will publicize
the names of those officials," she said.

Bisharian alleged that the Kocharian administration is also planning
to resort to other vote irregularities, notably vote buying. She was
asked in that regard to comment on reports that Samvel Balasanian,
another Orinats Yerkir leader who owns a brewery in Gyumri, offered
local residents beer free of charge on Tuesday.

Bisharian confirmed the beer treat but insisted that it does not
constitute a vote bribe. "Samvel Balasanian opened a plant yesterday
and treated people to beer in connection with the opening," she said.

"That person does charitable work 12 months a year."