MORE THAN A MAYORALTY
by Marianna Grigoryan

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uage=1&IdPublication=4&NrIssue=321&NrS ection=1&NrArticle=20571
May 13 2009
Czech Republic

The campaign to run Yerevan City Hall is being waged in the long
shadow of last year’s violent election season. From EurasiaNet.

YEREVAN | Rarely has a city council election attracted such
notice. Yerevan’s 31 May municipal election marks not only the first
time voters can play a role in choosing their own mayor, but, for
Armenia’s largest opposition movement, a chance to make up for the
loss of last year’s presidential election.

The vote’s national implications can be seen in the banners
promoting ex-President Levon Ter-Petrosian as a candidate for the
city council. "Let’s change Armenia. Let’s start with Yerevan!" they
read. If Ter-Petrosian’s Armenian National Congress wins one vote
over 40 percent of the council’s 65 seats, the 64-year-old former
Armenian leader would be named Yerevan’s new mayor. The president
previously appointed the four-year post.

At a 1 May rally, Ter-Petrosian embraced claims that his candidacy
has politicized the city council race.

Voters should "only be grateful to the Armenian National Congress for
politicizing the . . .election," he told onlookers. " For [the ANC]
will try to prevent the criminalization of the election by doing so."

Six parties aside from the Armenian National Congress alliance
have registered for the race, according to the Central Election
Commission. Some 771,353 registered voters are eligible to take part.

Former Armenian President and mayoral candidate Levon Ter-Petrosian.

Ter-Petrosian supporters affirm that the vote is a chance to get back
their own after the 2008 presidential vote, an election they assert
was rigged against the ex-president.

"We will win!" proclaimed one voter, using Ter-Petrosian’s presidential
campaign slogan while dancing at a 4 May rally in Yerevan’s Arabkir
district. "And there are hopes for justice!"

But many voters just want a return to calm. Recollections of the brutal
1 March 2008 police crackdown on opposition activists protesting the
presidential election results still linger.

"We are sick and tired of shocks and want stability," said 57-year-old
Mariam Galstian, who supports Yerevan’s incumbent pro-government mayor,
Gagik Beglarian. "It’s not the time for radical changes. It’s only
the people who suffer the consequences. Let it stay as it is."

One candidate has already capitalized on that need for nurture. At a
6 May meeting with voters in Yerevan’s Davitashen district, Heghine
Bisharian, the lead candidate for the Country of Law Party, a member
of Armenia’s ruling coalition, declared that the Armenian capital
is in need of a woman’s care. Greater displays of kindness should be
among voters’ chief concerns, Bisharian affirmed.

Amid a downpour, Bisharian took that theme one step further and
compared herself to the Biblical character Noah, who saved the earth’s
animals from a flood. (Legend names the alleged great-great-grandson
of Noah, Hayk, as the founder of Armenia.)

"Noah today is Heghine Bisharian," Bisharian proclaimed.

Other candidates are wheeling out more conventional themes to win
voters’ support.

Health Minister Harutiun Kushkian, who heads the list of candidates
for the Prosperous Armenia Party, another government coalition member,
relies on "We keep our promises!" A touch of celebrity is added,
too. Prosperous Armenia Party leader Gagik Tsarukian, a flamboyant
oligarch and one-time world arm wrestling champion, has promised to
attend Kushkian’s meetings with voters.

Incumbent Mayor Beglarian, a member of the ruling Republican Party of
Armenia, tries to cast himself as a man of action who will accomplish
what was not done in Yerevan during Soviet times – improving
streets and water lines, among other tasks. "I say no high-flown
words!" he pledged, in an apparent allusion to the emotional oratory
of Ter-Petrosian.

Independent political analyst Yervand Bozoian commented that the 27-day
campaign "will be quite intense," but, so far, there is little sign
that that intensity will mark candidates’ campaign platforms. Routine
problems of garbage collection, improved roads, water supplies,
and social welfare services are the focus.

The lack of detailed proposals, however, does not appear to have
deterred Yerevan voters. A recent survey run by the Sociometer center
found that only 30 percent of 1,650 voting-age respondents said that
they would stay away from the polls on May 31.

"Two factors can affect the conduct and the result of the election –
its politicization and the economic crisis," said the center’s head,
Aharon Adibekian. Both factors are likely to spark interest in the
vote, he added.

Party campaign staff interviewed by EurasiaNet indicated no problems to
date with intimidation, ad restrictions, or other forms of interference
with their campaigns. The Council of Europe’s Congress of Local and
Regional Authorities, however, has a different take.

"The Congress delegation understood that there were threats to the
proper conduct of these elections, in particular with respect to
the registration and mobilization of voters, the counting of votes,
and media objectivity in the campaign," read a statement released by
the Council of Europe’s information office in Yerevan.

The "real needs of the citizens of Yerevan could be brushed aside
because of … confrontation" between the opposition and governing
coalition in the city council vote, said delegation member Fabio
Pellegrini.

While Ter-Petrosian insists that such political jostling is a plus,
Republican Party spokesman Eduard Sharmazanov vows that politics will
not botch the election.

"All the necessary conditions for democratic elections have been
created," Sharmazanov said.