Local election, national politics

Municipal elections took place in Yerevan on 31 May, "a local election
driven by a national agenda". Amidst claims of widespread fraud and
intimidation, opposition leader and former president Levon Ter-Petrosyan
called for protests

17.06.2009 From Yerevan, Onnik Krikorian

As the first significant election to be held since last year’s bitterly
disputed and highly controversial presidential vote, the conduct of the
poll to determine Yerevan’s mayor should have provided the authorities
with the sorely-needed opportunity to improve Armenia’s democratic
credentials in the international arena. However, while a small team of
European observers considered the municipal election to be `largely
conducted in compliance with European standards," local observers and
analysts were not impressed.

Speaking to Osservatorio, Armenian National and International Studies
(ACNIS) Director Richard Giragosian is one of many critical of the vote.
`It was outrageous and yet another example of the systemic abuse and
misuse of administrative resources, the power of incumbency in this
country, and yet another lost opportunity for Armenia to actually turn
the page after the 1 March fiasco. However, the real hypocrisy comes not
from the Armenian government, but from the European observers who once
again endorsed a fragrantly abusive election.’

Despite such opinions, however, one diplomatic source in Yerevan urges
caution when considering the opinion of the observers from the Council
of Europe’s Congress of Local and Regional Authorities by suggesting
that critics wait until the final report is published.

Regardless, the stakes in the election were always going to be high.
Although ostensibly a local election, the importance of the vote to
determine who controls the economic and political heart of the country
had already been heightened by the candidacy of Levon Ter-Petrosyan,
Armenia’s first president and leader of the main extra-parliamentary
opposition Armenian National Congress (ANC). The coalition of over a
dozen minor political parties supporting him considered the vote to be a
`second-round’ of last year’s presidential election.

Ter-Petrosyan came in second during that vote to the current president,
Serzh Sargsyan, amidst claims of widespread fraud and intimidation. A
tense post-election standoff ended only when a state of emergency was
declared following bloody clashes between opposition supporters and
security forces which left 10 dead. Hundreds of Ter-Petrosyan’s closest
supporters and allies were detained, some still remain in custody or
prison, and a few remain on the run, location unknown.

Considering that, claims from the local affiliate of Transparency
International that the municipal vote was the `most illegal, amoral and
cynical elections in all the history of Armenia’ might be considered
somewhat of an exaggeration, but the larger concerns about
democratization in the country certainly continue to ring true. From the
outset, reports indicated that vote-buying was rampant among an
electorate which remains apathetic and unconvinced that it has the
ability to determine its own representatives and leaders.

Turnout was only 52 percent, despite probable ballot-box stuffing and
reports of bussing in of voters by the ruling governmental Republican
Party (RPA). Final results showed that the RPA won with 47.39 percent of
the vote, while Ter-Petrosyan’s ANC came in a distant third with just 17
percent, leading some in the parliamentary opposition Heritage party to
criticize the former president. Two of its MPs, Armen Martirosyan and
Zaruhi Postanjyan, said that the ANC’s poor showing indicated that it
was `not a mature political force yet.’

Giragosian agrees, but also says the vote highlighted other shortcomings
in Armenia’s fledgling democratic system. Rather than focus on local
issues of concern, much of Ter-Petrosyan’s campaign rhetoric instead
centered more on accusing the authorities of `selling-out’ national
issues during efforts to improve relations with Turkey and reported
momentum in negotiations to resolve the long-running conflict with
Azerbaijan over the disputed territory of Nagorno Karabakh.

`One of my fundamental criticisms across the board is that we had a
local election driven by a national agenda where this wasn’t about trash
collection, road repairs or local issues of concern to Yerevan’s
residents,’ he says. `This is a reflection on the sad state of local
politics in Armenia where discourse is already fundamentally limited
within certain nationalist parameters. However, this was a
miscalculation because it failed and is rooted in the bigger problem of
politics driven by personality rather than by policy alternatives.’

Moreover, argues Giragosian, while the two main governmental parties
could be faulted for resorting to falsification, so too can the
extra-parliamentary opposition be for preparing for what it hoped would
be huge post-election rallies on the scale of those following last
year’s presidential vote. Instead, the day after the 31 May election,
the opposition only managed to gather just a few thousand, with many of
those attending looking depressed and disillusioned. A new strategy was
only revealed last Friday at another rally attended by just 4-5,000 people.

Typically, the first three main points from the opposition’s 12-point
platform focuses on Armenia-Turkey relations and the Nagorno Karabakh
conflict, highlighting the fact that political forces on all sides
consider such issues as the only way to mobilize support.

But, if falling attendances at opposition rallies and low support at the
polls might also represent the gradual demise of the extra-parliamentary
opposition, Giragosian argues that last month’s mayoral election instead
indicates that there could be a new re-drawing of the political
landscape, but perhaps in unexpected ways. With clashes reported between
the RPA and another ruling party, Prosperous Armenia, the real changes
might occur away from the opposition and in the government camp itself.

`The only difference from previous elections is that within the monolith
of the ruling coalition we saw new fractures and fissures appearing with
members from the two parties literally assaulting and getting into fist
fights with each other. The election demonstrated yet again that there
is the lack of true political parties in this country and the lack of
any grassroots bottom-up driven policy or ideology-driven forces,’ he says.

`It was strict confirmation that things are still unacceptably bad and
we’re going in the wrong direction. Armenia is approaching a crossroads
where it might become even more authoritarian by following a Belarus
model. However, the real determinant here is not politics, but
economics. The political stalemate and polarization can sustain the
system, and it can be managed, but an economic crisis would be the
tipping point. If the government can’t handle that, then this will pose
more serious challenges.’

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http://www.osservatoriobalcani.o rg/article/articleview/11471/1/404