Golos Armenii, Armenia
Feb. 21, 2008

The first post-election [rally]:they were waiting for critical mass

by Marina Lazarian and Aleksandr Tovmasyan

The election was completed in one round. The leader of the Republican
Party of Armenia, [Prime Minister] SerzhSargsyan, won with a wide
margin. We will leave it till later to analyze the components of this
resounding victory andthe reasons for the defeat of the other
candidates, since according to the traditional post-election
scenario, it is thelosers who speak in the days following the poll.

[Passage omitted: an opinion poll predicted result accurately]

Despite the previously announced starting time of 1500 [1100 gmt],
backers of Levon Ter-Petrosyan called for theirsupporters to come to
the Matenadaran [museum in central Yerevan] for midday. By 1200,
those who the day before had beensavouring in advance Levon’s victory
in the first round were standing around in groups. They stood
listening touplifting music. Every half-hour the leader of the New
Times party [Aram] Karapetyan declared the readiness
ofTer-Petrosyan’s supporters to go all the way. The demonstrators
chanted Struggle, struggle to the end.

[Passage omitted: rally resembled post-election rallies in 2003]

Musheg Sagatelyan is ready to go unarmed…

Yesterday’s rally and procession could be characterized as letting
off steam. The boldest participants riskedtrampling election banners
of Serzh Sargsyan underfoot. The remainder limited themselves to
hissing and whistling inapproval.

Musheg Sagatelyan – a member of the Test of Spirit public
organization [of Karabakh war veterans] who in the yearswhen the
Armenian Pan-National Movement [led by Ter-Petrosyan] was in power
was famed for beating leading oppositionactivists and participants in
the 1996 protest rallies [following a controversial presidential
election, in whichTer-Petrosyan won a second term] in Interior
Ministry remand centres, for which he was nicknamed bonebreaker –
spoke (ina heartfelt manner) at yesterday’s meeting about…
[ellipsis as published] democracy and human rights. Addressing the
Yerkrapah [a pro-Sargsyan organization of Karabakh war veterans], he
recalled those who pledged to fight to thedeath, and declared his
readiness to lay down his life in the struggle against the regime. I
will go unarmed and amready to die, he said with tears in his voice,
without specifying where he would go and how he would be killed.

[Passage omitted: more in this vein]

Between the orators’ speeches, the crowd was chanting Levon! Levon!,
while some particularly loud old women werescreaming Levon for king.
In a word, the protest crowd, half of which was made up of village
residents and youths,actively let off steam, chewed sunflower seeds
and screamed Levon! and Victory!. They greeted the appearance of
theiridol at the microphone with rejoicing.

Levon criticizes the oligarchs

Ter-Petrosyan started by stating that nothing special happened on 19
February – there was a usual election with theuse of brute force
against the people. This is the rule of bandits, the criminal
underworld, the intertwining of theauthorities and criminality…
[ellipsis as published]

[Passage omitted: Ter-Petrosyan named businessmen and political
figures with reputed criminal background]

Ter-Petrosyan forgot to add that more than half those on this list
entered politics exclusively thanks to theArmenian Pan-National
Movement and to him personally.

In a word, the former president blamed his election defeat on the
efforts of oligarchs, not forgetting to insist thatalongside the
criminals and oligarchs, the other eight presidential candidates bore
equal responsibility for thisshameful election. Remember how at his
first rally (after his return to politics [in September 2007]),
Ter-Petrosyanspoke rather favourably of the oligarchs and even urged
people not to call them that and to consider them all butvictims of
the current regime. Yesterday, he said that the oligarchs had removed
their masks and showed their trueface.