EU ENVOY HOPES FOR SPEEDY RESOLUTION OF ELECTION CONTROVERSY IN ARMENIA

Mediamax, Armenia
Feb 29 2008

The EU envoy for the South Caucasus has said he is concerned about
the continuing conflict between the authorities and the opposition led
by candidate Levon Ter-Petrosyan over the results of the presidential
election in Armenia. He described the situation with ongoing rallies
as "rather abnormal". The following is the text of report in English
by private Armenian news agency Mediamax

EU Special Representative in the South Caucasus Peter Semneby visited
Yerevan on 27-28 February for discussing the post-election situation.

Before his departure to Brussels Peter Semneby summed up the results
of his talks in an exclusive interview with Mediamax news agency.

[Correspondent] Whom from the representatives of the Armenian
authorities and the opposition have you met?

[Semneby] I have met a whole range of people both from the government
and the opposition. I have met the prime minister, the foreign
minister, the head of the Central Electoral Commission. I have also met
some of the opposition candidates for president – Levon Ter-Petrosyan,
Artur Baghdasaryan and Vahan Hovhannesyan. And also other opposition
representatives, not candidates, in particular, Raffi Hovhannesyan.

EU concerned about stand-off

[Correspondent] What are your impressions? How stable do you consider
the present situation in Armenia? And in general, what is your
evaluation of this post-election period?

[Semneby] We are of course worried that there is a stand-off at the
moment involving those parts of the opposition that for one reason of
another dispute the results of the election. We are concerned about
the tension.

Any situation like this is always a danger for wrong step on either
side, and of escalation. Our position here is that any differences
should be discussed, they should be seriously considered, and they
should be resolved through dialogue and through the procedures that
have been established. And it is important also in this situation on
both sides to show responsibility and not to allow for an escalation
of the situation further.

[Correspondent] The main reason for this stand-off is the fact that
according to the official data, Ter-Petrosyan has gained about 20
per cent of votes, however, he claims that he gained 65 per cent. How
responsible is that statement?

[Semneby] Well, if the discrepancy would be of this magnitude, it
would be spectacular and sensational. I don’t want to comment on
the individual results, since there are still procedures going on,
since I know that certain candidates are going to file applications
to the Constitutional Court.

It’s difficult for me to comment on results in one way or another. We
have taken notes of the official results as it has been announced.

And this is the basis at this moment for our actions and how we try to
orient ourselves in this situation. And these official results show
that the Prime Minister won the elections by a narrow margin, but he
won the elections in the first round. But beyond the observation of
this, I will not try to get involved in the process that will still
run its course.

[Correspondent] On 27 February the term, when one might contest
the vote recount data in the Administrative Court, expired. The
Administrative Court stated that it had not received any applies.

Don’t you consider it strange that Ter-Petrosyan and Baghdasaryan,
who are discontent by the results of the vote recount, did not turn
to the Administrative Court?

[Semneby] I don’t want to comment on that. There are several ways:
if the candidate believes that there have been violations, there are
several ways of pursuing those claims. I really don’t want to get
into speculations about why certain candidate has used this or the
other path.

"Rather abnormal" situation

[Correspondent] Ter-Petrosyan’s supporters have been holding an
unapproved rally for over a week at the Freedom Square. However,
they do not limit themselves to that only and every day carry out
processions in the central streets.

Do you consider this normal?

[Semneby] Well, I have seen the rally myself, and I have seen the
march also yesterday going through Yerevan. I have witnessed larger
rallies in other situations. The fact that it continues for a long
time may of course be something that affects those living around
the area, but it’s also regrettable there has not been, apparently,
as far as I have been told, an application to hold this rally. I am
fairly confident that it would have been granted if such an application
have been in file. I would hope in this special situation that exists
the authorities will treat this rally as if an application had been
filed. It is at the same time an incontrovertible fact also that should
be memento to the authorities as well that there are a large number
of people coming to these rallies. What it shows at the same time is
that there are reasons; there are people who in one way or another are
discontented. This is something that should also be taken into account.

I hope that this situation, which is rather abnormal, will be
over within a short period of time. It is important to above all
to make sure that this situation, which is fairly volatile, does
not escalate in one way or another. And that involves above all
a sense of responsibility on the part of everybody, of course, on
behalf of those participating in the rally, but also on the part of
the authorities. There are other cases and recent examples of cases,
where even what have seemed like a rather innocuous and simple attempt
to disperse rallies of this kind, have been turned out to be very
difficult to control the situation that we faced in Georgia in early
November 2007, was such an example that I should also factor into
the consideration here.

Violations should be punished

[Correspondent] Armenian Prime Minister, who won the elections,
stated his readiness to investigate all the facts of violations in
the process of elections and punish the guilty. How sincere are the
authorities. You met the Prime Minister, did he bring any concrete
results of such investigation?

[Semneby] I discussed this with both the prime minister and the Head of
the Central Electoral Commission. I will not go into any detail here,
because a lot of these issues will be brought up in due course by the
ODIHR Election Observation Mission. That will provide a firm basis
for making comments on this. But I did hear from the prime minister
that he is taking these issues seriously and I take his word on this.

There have indeed been serious problems in these elections. And many
of the problems have concerned the period actually after the election,
whereas the election campaign and the voting itself proceeded without
any serious problems. The vote counting and the reporting of the voting
as during the parliamentary elections have demonstrated problems. There
have also been allegations of other types misconduct in the run-up
to the voting, which are more difficult to verify. But there lots of
stories that I have heard from all parts of the political spectrum
about vote-buying and such things. I do not know myself whether that
is taken places. But this is something that should be looked at very
seriously and the problems regarding the vote-counting should also
be taken seriously. And those, who are responsible for the violations
should also carry the responsibility for this.

[Correspondent] Serzh Sargsyan urged all the political forces and
all the former candidates to cooperate and made it clear that the
establishment of a wide coalition may be at issue. What is your
assessment of the given proposal in the given situation?

[Semneby] I think the intention is good and healthy one in this
situation, when we are facing a rather divided nation. The election
results, which showed that it was a very tight race, this demonstrates
that this is a divided nation at the crucial stage of its development,
where there should be some degree of national unity on issues of
strategic importance. In this situation I think it does make sense
to try to unify the political forces around some key objectives. How
this will be done in practice, whether it should be in the form of
a coalition, whether that is realistic, whether you should be in
terms of cooperation on an ad-hoc basis on certain issues, or whether
some other way of cooperation will be found. I do believe that this
is path that should be explored. Given the divisions that do exist,
I think at the same time one has to be realistic in terms of what is
possible to achieve in this regard in the short-term.

Talks with Azerbaijan

[Correspondent] Recently, you stated that the meeting of the
newly-elected Armenian president and the Azerbaijani president
before the elections in Azerbaijan is desirable. Right after that,
the Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan Araz Azimov
stated that Baku is not ready for such a meeting.

On 28 February, Araz Azimov again stated that the meeting is possible
only after the fulfilment of a number of "conditions", first of which
is the consent of Azerbaijan. What is your assessment of the given
statements of Azerbaijan?

[Semneby] Well, it is obvious that any meeting can only take place by
the consent of both sides. I am strongly of the opinion that the more
contacts there exist between the two countries, between Armenians and
Azerbaijanis, the better it is, at all levels, at the highest level,
down to the grass-roots level.

And I can only regret that so many of these lines of communications
have been interrupted for so long.

I think it would be very gratifying if the new Armenian president would
have an opportunity to meet his Azeri colleague as soon as possible,
I think it would be beneficial to both sides, but this requires of
course the agreement on both sides and it should be a meeting also,
since the stakes at the highest level are fairly high, that should
be well-prepared.