MAYORAL ELECTIONS AND TOMATO GROWERS
Gevorg Darbinyan

HETQ politics
2009/04/06 | 19:07

Most likely the Heritage Party will not share its seats on the various
electoral committees with the HAK (Armenian National Committee)
during the upcoming May 31 Yerevan municipal council elections. The
party led by Raffi Hovhannisyan has decided to adopt a strict stance
of neutrality in the elections and to not assist HAK in any practical
manner. Thus, it aims not to lose its position in the oppositional
field and use the fact that it is a parliamentary presence, its only
advantage with respect to HAK.

This is the only lever with which Heritage can still keep HAK in
a certain degree of dependence and oblige HAK to sit down and come
to terms with it. Nevertheless, after the decision by Heritage to
not even share its committee seats, HAK isn’t in a rush to carry
out the orders of the regime in terms of that party, to accuse it of
unprincipled manifestations of behavior. These manifestations came to
light immediately after Heritage expressed its intent to participate
in the Yerevan city council elections with an independent ticket.

In essence, despite the fact that seven political forces will be
participating in the elections, in practical terms, two poles have
been created. On the one hand there is the opposition, in the guise
of HAK. Then there is the regime, represented by the four coalition
parties, which have two matters to pursue.

First, for each, to garner the maximum number of transient votes
whose sum will guarantee a council majority. At the very least, these
forces must receive enough votes in the council elections to arrive
at a relative picture that totally portrays the relative distribution
of power in the parliament.

This will also serve as an indirect method to legitimize and verify the
officially recorded results in last year’s presidential elections. In
these conditions, it can’t be ruled out that HAK will garner more votes
than the HHK (Republican Party of Armenia) does outright. However,
the ARF, PAP and OYP, by forming a coalition with the HHK in the
"legislative" body of the municipality, the council, will effectively
hinder the HAK as a minority; in the same manner it hinders Heritage
in the parliament.

This tactic to win the game through "temporary defeat" is conducive
for the regime. On the one hand, it will show that it accepts
the overwhelming advantage that the opposition leader has over its
candidate for the mayor. On the other, with the help of its coalition
partners, it will push through the election of Beglaryan for mayor
and thus solve its problem.

Naturally, in this case, HAK’s dependency on its coalition partners
increases. There will be compensation to pay in return for services
rendered if the operation is achieved through united efforts. The
other parties in the coalition will definitely make their demands
known to the HHK and to the president.

>From the start, Serzh Sargsyan was trying to avert such dependency,
by attempting to utilize the election for the governing bodies of
Yerevan in order to achieve the status of a more independent player.

The unexpected move by Ter-Petrosyan to contest the elections forces
the HHK to temporarily give up on that maximalist plan and fall
back on the services of the pro-regime forces. To avert this trap,
HAK must not only score a victory against the HHK but also against
all the coalition forces in unison.

In the absence of the Heritage Party, the maximalist program sought
by the coalition forces to destroy the votes of the opposition would
appear to be unrealistic.

The second issue is to destroy the votes of the opposition to the
extent possible and not to give them serious opportunities to protest
the results of the elections. The governing authorities understand
very well that this issue will be practically impossible to resolve
via the coalition parties because the election, rather than a contest
among seven parties, is more a contest between the regime and the
opposition; between the HAK and all the remaining participants.

In such a set-up, it really doesn’t matter if the regime is represented
by four or fourteen parties before the voters. In this light the
other two seemingly neutral parties, the People’s Party and the
HASK (Socialist Labor Party of Armenia), are in reserve and can be
utilized. The HASK presence on the ticket will be used to create
a degree of confusion on the part of voters if the regime cannot
foil the plans of the opposition to take the elections to a second
round. Then too, this method can be used, if and when necessary,
to surreptitiously register votes casts for HAK to HASK.

What is noteworthy is that the names of representatives of the
government nomenclature, from a few ministries, are to be found on
the HASK ballot.

Against the backdrop of the absence of the Heritage Party, the
role of Tigran Karapetyan and his People’s Party assume greater
importance. Karapetyan can be used as the man of the moment
and fashioned to take over the votes of Heritage, the moderate
opposition. No wonder why Karapetyan states that is Raffi Hovhannisyan
had participated in the elections he could have taken a portion
of his votes. However, this variant of Karapetyan’s can’t be all
that effective when we take into account his political standing and
eccentric character. These serve to dispel more than attract. Perhaps
the authorities won’t feel the need to employ the services of
Karapetyan anyway. However, that isn’t their main problem.

Both HASK and the People’s Party will try to prevent the election
campaign from being placed on a truly political footing. These forces
will probably do all to see to make sure that the rank and file voter
gets the impression that the Yerevan mayor is being elected merely
to repair and clean the streets and control traffic.

Tigran Karapetyan has already started to brainwash the voter along
these lines. During his latest interview he literally shone by spewing
forth a number of populists adages. He declared that Yerevan residents
must have supplementary sources of income and that they should be
growing tomatoes and cucumbers. This doesn’t only mean that growing
tomatoes will be the leitmotif of Karapetyan in the elections. It
will also signify that a new fifth column of tomato growers will
descend on the patriotic political field, whose cornerstones were
laid in the 2008 presidential elections.