TER-PETROSIAN TOUGHENS ANTI-GOVERNMENT RHETORIC
By Emil Danielyan

Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
Jan 24 2008

Former President Levon Ter-Petrosian toughened his harsh
anti-government rhetoric Thursday as he toured Armenia’s central
Kotayk region on the fourth day of his election campaign.

Addressing voters in local towns and villages, Ter-Petrosian avoided
dwelling on details of his election manifesto and focused instead
on fresh verbal attacks on President Robert Kocharian and Prime
Minister Serzh Sarkisian. In particular, he again implicated them
in the October 1999 assassination of the parliament speaker Karen
Demirchian and Prime Minister Vazgen Sarkisian.

"People who destroyed your beloved Karen Demirchian and Vazgen
Sarkisian want to perpetuate their power based on blood," Ter-Petrosian
told a rally in Charentsavan, a once industrial small town. "And those
people who serve them effectively assist individuals responsible for
the greatest state disgrace in the entire history of the Armenian
people." Flanked by Demirchian’s son Stepan and Vazgen Sarkisian’s
brother Aram, Ter-Petrosian declared that voting for him would be
tantamount to showing respect for the two assassinated leaders.

Ter-Petrosian was particularly outspoken in his references to Serzh
Sarkisian, pouncing on the latter’s alleged weakness for gambling
and saying that Armenia will face another war with Azerbaijan if
he is elected president. "He would lead you, our people, our entire
country to the Monte Carlo casino and would lose it in that casino,"
he charged.

Ter-Petrosian further claimed that last summer Sarkisian offered him
"through many other people" to manage Matenadaran, Armenia’s famous
museum of ancient manuscripts where he had worked until 1990, in
return for not returning to active politics. "It would be a great
honor for me. But for me, an honor given by Sarkisian is poison,"
he told about 300 people who gathered in Charenstavan’s central square.

Among those attending the rally were several dozen employees of a
local mineral water bottling company owned by Khachatur Sukiasian,
a millionaire businessman close to Ter-Petrosian. The Bjni plant has
been operating at a fraction of its capacity ever since being raided
by tax officials last fall as part of a controversial government
crackdown on Sukisian’s businesses accused of tax evasion. The
tycoon, who plays a major role in the Ter-Petrosian campaign, says
the government accusations are baseless and politically motivated.

Most of Bjni’s 250 or so employees have been effectively out of work
since then. "We are not sure who we trust, we just want to keep our
jobs," said one of them. "This is the only place in town where people
earn a decent living."

Charentsavan has been one of the most economically depressed places
in Armenia ever since the collapse of the Soviet economy which forced
the closure of virtually all of its industrial enterprises in the
early 1990s. The town has barely benefited from the country’s robust
economic growth.

Ter-Petrosian allies, who addressed the small crowd, as well as local
opposition activists accused Charentsavan Mayor Hakob Shahgeldian,
whose father Kovalenko is Kotayk’s governor, of bullying local
residents not to attend the gathering. Shahgeldian, who is also Prime
Minister Sarkisian’s local campaign manager, denied this as he watched
the rally from the nearby municipality building.

"Mr. Kovalenko and his noble son, you have booked yourself a cell in
[Yerevan’s] Nubarashen prison," Ter-Petrosian stated before heading
to the Shahgeldians’ native village of Alapars where he similarly
lashed out at the government.

The 63-year-old ex-president clearly failed to impress all of about 100
villagers who listened to his much shorter speech there. "For 15 years
we have been electing presidents, deputies and others," one of them
told RFE/RL. "They come here, give promises but we stay just as poor."

Another local man said he will not vote for Ter-Petrosian "even if God
descends and asks me to" because of the hyperinflation of the early
1990s that wiped out his Soviet-era bank savings. "I worked hard
in Communist times and saved money for my children but he came and
turned it into a piece of paper," he said. "Why isn’t he promising
to return that money?"

"Whoever was in charge then, things would have been the same,"
countered Vartan, an elderly resident of the nearby village of Bjni
also visited by Ter-Petrosian. "Those were tough times. There was an
earthquake and then the war."

Other Ter-Petrosian supporters in the area cited the fact the war
won under Armenia’s former leadership. "We had not won lands before,"
said Ruben Yeghiazarian, a resident of neighboring Arzakan village.

"We had always lost them."

But as Mayis Hayrapetian, a local activist of Demirchian’s People’s
Party of Armenia, admitted, those who have decided to vote for
Ter-Petrosian are primarily motivated by their deep dislike of the
government. "Many people here say it’s worth voting for him just to
get rid of the current authorities," he said.

"Opposition candidates have always won here. Our victory will be even
more convincing this time around," added Hayrapetian.

The opposition did well in the region even during the hotly disputed
presidential election of September 1996 which saw Ter-Petrosian
narrowly win a second term in office. In fact, Kotayk and the capital
Yerevan were the only parts of Armenia where official vote results
showed the then incumbent losing to his main opposition challenger,
Vazgen Manukian.

Ter-Petrosian recalled this fact as he spoke to Charentsavan voters.

"I am extremely happy with and proud of the fact that I was defeated
in this region in 1996," he said. "That is the greatest source of
pride for me. Let anyone, any official, any police chief or mayor say
if he has faced any retribution from me [at the time] … If had any
achievements during my presidency, the biggest of them was your free
vote against me."