KARABAKH ELECTION CLOSELY FOUGHT
By Ashot Beglarian in Stepanakert (CRS No. 401, 18-July-07)
Institute for War and Peace Reporting, UK
July 18 2007
Observers say that official Karabakh Armenian candidate not assured
of victory.
There are two favourites amongst the five candidates competing in
the the July 19 election for the leadership of Nagorny Karabakh,
making this ballot the first genunine contest since the end of the
war over a decade ago
Both men come from within the governing elite but one is the official
candidate while the other is positioning himself as a potential
reformer.
Bako Sahakian, head of Karabakh’s national security service, has the
support of the main political parties in the local parliament as well
as most of the government and the elite in Armenia. Masis Mailian
serves as the unrecognised republic’s deputy foreign minister, but
is gathering more support from circles outside government.
The poll was triggered by the end of the second term of current
Karabakh leader Arkady Ghukasian. Although Karabakh has passed a
new constitution which might have enabled him to serve a third term,
he took the decision to step down after two periods in office.
Around 90,000 people are registered to vote in the poll. If no
candidate gets more than 50 per cent of the vote on July, a second
round will be held between the two main candidates in two weeks’ time.
"The defining feature of this campaign is its fierceness," said
Karabakh Armenian political commentator David Karabekian. "If in a
previous campaign one of the candidates won because he…got in the
worst case 86 per cent of the vote, this battle has a completely
different character."
Sahakian, 47, was not a public politician before the election campaign
began. During the 1991-4 war, he was one of the leading officers on
the Armenian side. He has been campaigning on a programme to raise
living standards in the territory.
He is promising support for war veterans, pensioners, schoolchildren
and families with multiple children and has pledged that there will be
a fivefold increase in mortgage credits available from the government
in 2008.
Karabekian said that in the campaign Sahakian had managed to
demonstrate he was his own man and not just a puppet of the elites,
"Several times he has distanced himself from steps recommended to
him and initiated by these people."
On the overarching issue for Nagorny Karabakh – its future status
and their stance on negotiations with the Azerbaijani government –
the two men express similar views. Both say that they want to see
Karabakh recognised as an independent state and represented in peace
negotiations with Baku. Currently, the Karabakh Armenians do not have
a place at the table and are represented by the government in Yerevan.
Both are also against making concessions on the occupied territories
outside Karabakh until the sovereignty of the republic is determined.
"Negotiations between the Nagorny Karabakh Republic and Azerbaijan
about defining current borders can be held only after the unconditional
recognition of the sovereignty and state independence of Nagorny
Karabakh," said Mailian.
Mailian, 39, has worked in Karabakh’s foreign ministry since it was
created in the middle of the war in 1993 and took part in a series
of negotiations with Baku in the Nineties.
Mailian has focussed his campaign on the need for Karabakh to be
more transparent and democratic and said the elections are a test of
its credentials.
"Everyone has to be equal before the law," he said. "Only if all
the laws we have adopted actually work will be able to guarantee
development, a good life and a bright future and receive international
recognition."
Mailian said that the authorities were cut off from the people of
Karabakh, a situation he said was "unacceptable".
"In recent days I have had many meetings with voters and all with one
voice have said that no one listens to them and their statements are
not received in the offices of the powerful."
In a lively campaign, both main candidates have had the chance to
present their views on television, although there have been no public
debates. Both have toured Nagorny Karabakh and had public meetings
with voters.
There have been no violent incidents but members of Mailian’s campaign
team have complained that the government has been unfairly agitating
on behalf of Sahakian on Karabakh television.
Karabekian believes that, although he is not the official candidate,
Mailian has a genuine chance of success.
"Some analysts say that there isn’t a real contest between the
candidates and that the authorities of Armenia and Nagorny
Karabakh have basically agreed who will be president and Masis
Mailian is needed just as a sparring partner," he said referring to
Bako Sahakian.
"That is primitive logic. If the elections are just a backdrop for the
transfer of power from one representative of the elite to another, an
echo of the coming change of power in Armenia, then the question has to
be asked: why have the authorities played, to use chess terminology,
such big pieces and why are the different officials and bureaucrats
agitating on behalf of their own candidate, acting so nervously?"
Gegham Baghdasarian, independent member of parliament and editor of
the independent newspaper Demo, agrees that not everything has been
decided in advance.
"Even before the electoral campaign began some people and some forces
maintained and are still stating that the elections were pre-determined
and it’s already clear who will be the next president of the country,"
Baghdasarian said on public television.
"A person must really despise his own people and hold a low opinion
of it, about its mental and moral level, to say something like that.
It’s you, us, who will decide this. So don’t believe these fairy tales
and go to the elections, not as though you are doomed but with the
will to be masters of your own fate, in the frame of mind that who
gets elected really depends on you."
Ashot Beglarian is a freelance journalist and IWPR contributor in
Nagorny Karabakh. Editor’s note: The terminology used in this article
was chosen by IWPR, not the author.