PATRONAGE AND DEEP POCKETS BECOME ISSUES IN THE YEREVAN MAYORAL ELECTION
Marianna Grigoryan

Eurasianet

April 8, 2009

Yerevan’s City Council elections may be more than a month and a half
away, but improvements to the Armenian capital’s infrastructure and
appearance remind residents that the unofficial campaign season is
well under way.

In recent weeks, incumbent Mayor Gagik Beglarian, a member of the
governing Republican Party of Armenia, has promised to build new water
lines, to landscape parks, to pave thousands of square meters of back
yards, and to install additional city lights. His reason? "We shall
succeed together," Beglarian declared on April 1 to journalists in
one Yerevan district.

Campaign workers for Healthcare Minister Harutiun Kushkian, the
mayoral candidate for the Prosperous Armenia Party, have been busy,
too. Kushkian supporters distributed roses and greeting cards
to women in Yerevan on April 7, the Armenian Day of Beauty and
Motherhood. Prosperous Armenia is joined with the Republican Party
in Armenia’s governing coalition on the national level.

"This is not a pre-election move," said Prosperous Armenia
parliamentarian Naira Zohrabian who is handling public relations for
the campaign. "Attention to women is a tradition in our party."

The handouts and public works are making it harder for an opposition
party coalition to gain traction with voters. The coalition is
aiming to capture a big enough share of the vote to make opposition
leader and former president Levon Ter-Petrosian mayor of the
Armenian capital. [For background see the Eurasia Insight archive].
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Some of his supporters indicate that their apparent financial
disadvantage is imposing a significant hurdle to achieving their
aim. A top representative of People’s Party of Armenia, a member of
Ter-Petrosian’s opposition movement, noted that such distributions
have not occurred in the past. "Unfortunately, the work style is quite
familiar to us," commented Ruzan Khachatrian, a member of the party’s
political council. "Those efforts will be even bigger this time,
because the opposition’s chances are incomparably bigger as well."

There are seven contenders for the mayor’s post, including
Ter-Petrosian, whose participation has stimulated media and public
interest in the May 31 vote. Parties, however, have revealed little
information about their campaigns. A 60-million-dram (about $161,264)
spending limit, however, would appear to set certain restraints on
their activities — at least by law. But some observers see parties,
with their handouts and promises, as evading the spirit of the spending
limit. If that is the case, there is little that can be done to stop
such practices, election officials say.

"The Central Electoral Commission has no authority to supervise
[campaign expenses] before the campaign officially starts," explained
commission spokesperson Tatev Ohanian.

Ohanian, however, saw no problem with the distribution of flowers
in Yerevan to women voters. "The CEC would not oppose it if women
were also presented with perfumes 365 days a year," he said. "That
wouldn’t be bad."

People’s Party of Armenia official Khachatrian counters that flowers
are just the start. "Authorities will once again use administrative
resources. They collect passport data at educational and healthcare
institutions," she said. Opposition media reports that passport
data is being collected to assist Mayor Beglarian’s reelection bid
have sparked concerns among both the opposition and members of the
governing coalition.

Haykakan Zhamanak daily newspaper reporter Christine Khanumian visited
Yerevan’s School #60 and identified herself as an image consultant
for Mayor Beglarian. The school principal shared the passport data
entered into her computer, and showed that they had been recorded on
a CD and sent to the mayor, Khanumian claimed.

"The principal boasted that she had personally collected a large amount
of data [about her subordinates], and told me that everything is going
very well," Khanumian told EurasiaNet. "As I was leaving, she wished
success to ‘our common cause’." An assistant to the principal later
denied the allegations, she said.

The collection of passport data by political parties is a reoccurring
problem in Armenian election campaigns; the data is used to check
that individuals vote for a certain candidate as promised.

Mayoral candidate Artsvik Minasian, a member of the Armenian
Revolutionary Federation Party, told EurasiaNet that he had been
given such data by a number of sources. "That’s not the best way to
succeed in elections," Minasian said, adding that "the question has
also been raised by colleagues from the coalition."

"It’s very important not to have administrative leverage used,
yet it is," he continued. "Only the president can guarantee that
administrative leverage will not be used. Like in many other matters,
here as well, it depends on the president’s behavior."

Prosperous Armenia MP Zohrabian also admitted to receiving such data,
but put the onus for a fair vote on all parties participating in the
election. "Each [political] group needs to be able to take control
over the procedure," she said. "Besides, I don’t take those lists and
data seriously. That’s a waste of time." Voters can vote as they wish,
even if they give out their passport details, Zohrabian asserted.

The governing Republican Party of Armenia asserts that discussions
about the use of administrative resources are nonsense. Spokesperson
Eduard Sharmazanov underlined that the party neither needs, nor has
the desire or opportunity, to use administrative resources. "The
ancient Romans used to say that nothing spreads as rapidly as a lie,"
Sharmazanov commented. "Whether it is rain or snow, there are always
the authorities to blame for this. We will do our best to hold an open,
transparent and democratic election."