Transitions Online, Czech Republic
Jan 14 2008
Presidential Ambitions
by Haroutiun Khachatrian
14 January 2008
A formidable prime minister faces a former president in Armenia’s
upcoming election. From EurasiaNet.
YEREVAN | With a little more than one month to go before Armenia’s
presidential election, the field of candidates is coming into sharper
focus. Overall, nine men are expected to battle for the presidency
when the campaign officially gets underway on 21 January. But most
experts believe the race quickly will boil down to a contest between
two men – Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian and former president Levon
Ter-Petrosian.
Robert Kocharian
The presidential vote is slated for 19 February. Sarkisian has long
been viewed as the favorite to follow departing President Robert
Kocharian, who is constitutionally barred from running for
reelection. The benefits of incumbency are clearly on Sarkisian’s
side, as his Republican Party won a landslide victory in the May 2007
parliamentary elections. Opinion polls have shown Sarkisian to enjoy
the support of roughly one-third of potential voters, enough to give
him a commanding lead over the other presidential hopefuls. Artur
Baghdasarian, the leader of the Orinats Yerkir (Land of Law) Party,
and Vahan Hovhannisian, Vice Speaker of the National Assembly
representing Dashnaktsutiun (the Armenian Revolutionary Federation),
trailed well behind Sarkisian with 13 percent and 6 percent support,
respectively, in the latest poll. Ter-Petrosian was among the six
presidential contenders whose polling numbers were running in the low
single digits.
Ter-Petrosian served as the first president of post-Soviet Armenia,
his tenure stretching from 1991 to 1998. In February 1998, he was
forced to resign amid a severe backlash to his suggestion that
Armenia make concessions to Azerbaijan in the still-stalemated peace
talks on Nagorno-Karabakh. Ter-Petrosian’s successor, Kocharian, has
governed since then.
Levon Ter-Petrosian
Judging by the numbers, it would seem that Ter-Petrosian poses no
threat to Sarkisian’s electoral chances. Yet it’s evident that
Sarkisian supporters within the government see the former president
as the most formidable opponent in the field. Ter-Petrosian and his
aides, for instance, have been denied access to most television
channels. The one notable exception is Yerkir Media TV, which is
controlled by the Dashnak Party.
At the same time, state-controlled media have provided generous
amounts of air time to longtime political enemies of Ter-Petrosian,
including Vazgen Manukian, the leader of the National Democratic
Party, and Artashes Geghamian, the leader of the National Unity
Party.
TOUGH TIME FOR EX-PRESIDENT
Privately operated television stations have generally followed the
lead of government-controlled channels. Campaign events organized by
the Ter-Petrosian camp have received scant media coverage, despite
the fact that several rallies have drawn tens of thousands of
spectators. The plainly evident media bias prompted two European
officials – Terry Davis, secretary-general of the Council of Europe,
and Peter Semneby, the European Union special representative for the
South Caucasus – to register complaints.
If anything, Ter-Petrosian has received even rougher treatment from
some print media. For example, the Hayots Ashkharh daily, an
independent newspaper with a decidedly pro-governmental outlook,
splashed two remarkable photomontages across the front pages of two
editions in late December. In one, Ter-Petrosian is depicted as
wearing a traditional Turkish fez, a clearly derogatory image given
Armenia’s long-standing hostility with both Turkey and Azerbaijan. In
the second montage, Ter-Petrosian’s Yerevan home is depicted as
flying a Turkish flag from a pole on its roof. The combined message
of the two images was unmistakable: a vote to return Ter-Petrosian to
power would be a vote to capitulate in Armenia’s ongoing diplomatic
struggles with Turkey and Azerbaijan.
Even in a fairer political environment, Ter-Petrosian’s candidacy
would face substantial challenges. Ter-Petrosian managed to generate
initial attention for his candidacy with a series of sharp attacks on
Kocharian’s administration. The task now will be to transform the
disenchantment with the Kocharian administration among a certain
segment of the electorate into genuine support for his own political
program.
Although about two dozen political parties and civic organizations
have endorsed Ter-Petrosian’s candidacy – most of them relatively
small in numbers and in influence – it remains to be seen if he can
build an effective organizational network. "He carries the bad
heritage of the past … but he is a good speaker and has [lengthy]
experience," the Azg daily summed up on 25 December.
One thing that is working in Ter-Petrosian’s favor is that he is
willing to operate within the existing political system, and has not
been an advocate of revolutionary change. This has enabled him to
cast himself as a political moderate. "There will be no revolution.
I’ll not allow violence and illegal actions from our side,"
Ter-Petrosian told the Moscow-based Kommersant daily on 6 December,
responding to a question about his possible actions in the event of
vote rigging by authorities.
Meanwhile, Kocharian’s fate after his departure from the presidency
remains a subject of widespread conjecture. Speculation is focusing
on the possibility of Kocharian and Sarkisian swapping places, with
the latter assuming the presidency and the former taking over as
prime minister. In October, Sarkisian denied such a possibility, but
an article published 29 December in the Haykakan Zhamanak newspaper,
citing "reliable sources," said that such an arrangement has indeed
been agreed upon.
Haroutiun Khachatrian is a Yerevan-based writer specializing in
economic and political affairs. A partner post from EurasiaNet.
From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress