EnerPub, TX
Feb. 26, 2008

Post-election jitters in Armenia

Observers ask if Armenia is on the eve of a colorful revolution or a
colorless transition of power following February elections.

Tuesday, February 26, 2008
by Asbed Kotchikian

Armenian citizens voted on 19 February in their 5th presidential
elections – and for their 3rd president – since independence. The
main contenders for the top political job included Prime Minster
Serge Sargsian, backed by the outgoing president Robert Kocharian;
Armenia’s first president, Levon Ter-Petrossian; a former speaker of
the house, Arthur Baghdasarian; and the current deputy speaker of the
house, Vahan Hovannisian.

Similar to many other elections in the former Soviet space, the
winner of the election was the individual backed by the state
institutions; in this case Sargsian. However, unlike other elections
there were some new elements during the election and post-election
period which made this particular poll in this small South Caucasus
country interesting.

Perhaps the most important aspect of the elections in Armenia was the
return of Ter-Petrossian to the political arena.

After a decade of self-imposed isolation, the former president
declared his candidacy with an agenda to "clean the house" and
managed to gather enough endorsements from various opposition groups
that he was viewed as the main opposition contender against Sargsian.
Ter-Petrossian’s potential return created much speculation both
domestically and internationally about the possibility of Armenia’s
first president becoming its third one as well.

While Ter-Petrossian was gaining momentum and challenging the status
quo, the government’s response was swift and the state-owned and
supported media staged a campaign against the former president by
linking his return with the dire socio-economic conditions that
Armenians were living under during his first tenure in power, when
Armenia was fighting a war in Nagorno-Karabakh and the country was
under an economic blockade from Turkey.

On election day, two diverging trends describing the election process
appeared. While international monitors – mostly from the Commonwealth
of Independent States (CIS) and the Organization for Security and
Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) – reported that the elections were
administered in compliance with OSCE and Council of Europe standards,
the local media painted another picture.

Even from the early hours of the election, news that pro-Sargsian and
pro-Ter-Petrossian groups had been conducting gross violations of
electoral laws such as ballot stuffing and intimidating election
monitors were reported by a wide array of local media sources. At the
end of the day election results showed that Sargsian had won the
election by almost 53 percent of the votes, thus sparing him a
run-off second stage election with his nearest rival Ter-Petrossian,
who was officially declared to have won over 21 percent of the votes.

The phenomenon of conflicting reports on the election process raised
the question in the minds of Armenian citizens whether Russia and the
West were more interested in stability and continuity of the current
regime?s policies than they were in observing that elections were
free and fair.

The immediate outcome was that the Ter-Petrossian camp called for the
annulment of the results and asked the people to continuously
demonstrate until their demands were met.

While tens of thousands of people have responded to Ter-Petrossian’s
call, it seems that the election results are final.

This final sentiment was echoed by the pro-establishment newspaper
Hayots Ashkharh where it announced that "the unequivocally positive
assessment of the [19 February] elections by the international
community settled the issue of determining Armenia’s next president
both for itself and for us."

Two issues remain important for the survival of the demonstrations.
The first is the chance that the demonstrators have to translate
their street power into a more sustained political movement. The fact
that the next parliamentary elections are over three years away means
that it is difficult for the opposition to try to control the
legislative branch and create a de facto system of checks and
balances.

In the 1998 presidential elections when Robert Kocharian won, his
main challenger Karen Demirchian managed to build on the momentum
that he had during the presidential elections to establish an
alliance with other opposition leaders and take over the parliament
and use it as an institutional base to challenge the presidency. The
strategy was successful until Demirchian was assassinated during a
parliament session only months after his success.

The second issue that could determine the future of the political
situation in Armenia is the continued defection by pro-government
deputies and government officials – including several high-ranking
Defense and Foreign Ministry officials – to the Ter-Petrossian camp.

True, there were quite a few number of defectors before the
elections, which could have been explained by the reports that
Ter-Petrossian had high chances of being elected and hence people
joined his camp based on that premise, but the continued defections
during the post-election period raises the issue of whether the
anti-government demonstrators still have a chance to reverse the
election results.

The main question remains if Armenia is on the eve of a colorful
revolution or a colorless transition of power.

While the political situation remains tense, there are no signs that
the demonstrations could turn violent as the opposition has been
adamant about reiterating that they will not use force to reverse the
lections results.

The power of the demonstrators could be tested in the coming weeks if
they continue to build momentum with more defectors joining their
ranks or just withering away as people return to "business as usual"
mode.

Asbed Kotchikian is the Assistant Director of International Affairs
Program at Florida State University and specializes in the politics
of identity as well as political processes in the South Caucasus and
the Middle East. The views and opinions expressed herein are those of
the author only, not the International Relations and Security Network
(ISN), which published this article.

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