ARMENIAN PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION SCHEDULED FOR FEBRUARY
By Emil Danielyan

Eurasia Daily Monitor, DC
Nov 14 2007

Armenia’s Central Election Commission (CEC) has set the date for the
upcoming presidential election, which will seal the end of President
Robert Kocharian’s ten-year rule. The vote, scheduled for February 19,
is increasingly shaping up as a two-horse race between Kocharian’s
long-time chief lieutenant, Prime Minister Serge Sarkisian, and
Levon Ter-Petrosian, the former Armenian president forced to resign
by Kocharian and Sarkisian almost a decade ago. The two rival camps
are gearing up for an uncompromising electoral battle, having already
traded bitter accusations over their government records.

The CEC’s decision, announced on November 9, came the day before
Sarkisian was officially nominated as the presidential candidate
of his ruling Republican Party (HHK). In his acceptance speech at a
pompous party congress in Yerevan, Sarkisian outlined his campaign
manifesto, pledging to turn Armenia into a "strong state" and to "at
least double" its citizens’ per-capita income. He also said that he
would "considerably toughen" the Armenian government’s stated fight
against corruption and stick to Yerevan’s long-standing position
on the Karabakh conflict, which rules out the disputed territory’s
return to Azerbaijani control.

A large (and the most significant) part of the speech was a response
to the harsh criticism of the current Armenian leadership voiced by
Ter-Petrosian in recent weeks. He signaled the end of his self-imposed
political retirement on September 21 with a public speech (the first
in nearly a decade) in which denounced the Kocharian administration
as an "institutionalized mafia-style regime that has plunged us into
the ranks of third world counties."

Ter-Petrosian elaborated on his allegations at an October 26 rally in
Yerevan attended by some 20,000 people. In a 90-minute address to the
crowd, he accused the authorities of suppressing dissent, violating
laws, and pocketing billions of dollars in taxes and informal payments
extorted from local businesspeople. What is more, the former president
effectively implicated Kocharian and Sarkisian in the still mysterious
October 1999 assassination of then-Prime Minister Vazgen Sarkisian
(no relation to Serge), parliamentary speaker Karen Demirchian, and
six other officials. Ter-Petrosian ended the speech by announcing
his participation in the presidential ballot and urging Armenians
to help him bring down the ruling "kleptocracy" (Haykakan Zhamanak,
October 27).

The regime’s response was swift. In remarks broadcast by the country’s
leading TV stations on October 31, Kocharian reminded Armenians of the
severe socioeconomic hardship suffered by them during his predecessor’s
1991-98 presidency. Armenia’s GDP shrunk by more than half in 1992-93,
following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the outbreak of the
wars in Karabakh as well as South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which all
but cut off the landlocked country from the outside world.

Kocharian downplayed the significance of these factors, insisting
that the economic collapse primarily resulted from the Ter-Petrosian
administration’s alleged incompetence and mismanagement. "Armenia’s
industry was destroyed in a matter of several years," he said (Armenian
Public Television, October 31).

Sarkisian also did not mince words, hitting back at independent
Armenia’s first president as he addressed the HHK congress. Instead of
attacking and seeking to topple the current authorities in Yerevan,
he said, Ter-Petrosian should "repent and apologize to the Armenian
people for, to put it mildly, mistakes committed by him."

"His desperate attempts to return to the presidential palace pursue
only one goal: not to serve his country and people but to take revenge
on all those who had ever criticized him," charged Sarkisian (168 Zham,
November 13).

Both Sarkisian and Kocharian claimed that Ter-Petrosian remains
too unpopular to pose a serious threat to them in the forthcoming
election. But all indications are that the two Karabakh-born men, who
were appointed to key government positions in Yerevan by Ter-Petrosian
in the 1990s, are seriously worried about the political comeback of
the savvy 62-year-old former scholar, widely acclaimed in the West for
advocating a more conciliatory line on Karabakh. The regime exposed
its jitters ahead of Ter-Petrosian’s rally by blocking any televised
advertisement of the event and breaking up a promotional street march
staged by a small group of opposition activists. Armenia’s leading TV
stations, all of them overseen by the presidential administration,
have also been hard at work, vilifying Ter-Petrosian with extremely
biased coverage of his past and present political activities.

Also in October the authorities launched a controversial financial
inspection of companies owned by Khachatur Sukiasian, the sole
Armenian "oligarch" who has dared to publicly voice support for
Ter-Petrosian. Two of those companies have already been accused by
the State Tax Service of evading taxes. One of their chief executives
is currently under arrest pending trial. Also facing accusations of
tax evasion is a small TV station in Armenia’s second-largest city of
Gyumri that broke ranks to air Ter-Petrosian’s September 21 speech
in full. Its owner claims to have been warned against doing that by
electronic media regulators in Yerevan.

The continuing absence of credible opinion polls in Armenia makes
it difficult for observers to gauge the extent of Ter-Petrosian’s
popularity. Relatively strong attendance at his landmark rally
suggests that many Armenians disillusioned with their government are
now ready to at least listen to the once revered man who led them
to independence. Ter-Petrosian and his opposition allies will hold
another demonstration in Yerevan on November 16.

On November 13 the pro-government daily Hayots Ashkhar reported that
the Armenian presidential election will be a "bipolar confrontation"
between the country’s current and former rulers and that other major
political groups will have to either side with one of these camps or
confine themselves to political sidelines.