ARMENIANS AFTER THE VOTE
Nicholas Lowry

NowLebanon
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June 19 2009
Lebanon

In the June 7 elections, Tashnaq, the largest and historically most
prominent Armenian party in Lebanon, scored only two of the six
seats reserved for Armenians in parliament (two other seats, the
minority and Evangelical seats in Beirut, generally go to Armenian
candidates). Now, Armenians supporting Tashnaq have been accused of
disloyalty by some close to Metn powerhouse Michel al-Murr. Moreover,
there are rumblings that Armenians in Lebanon are becoming isolated
from the country’s larger Christian community, which traditionally
they had considered themselves an integral part of.

Before the election there had been talk of a deal in Metn between
Tashnaq, which is aligned with the opposition, and Murr, who sided with
the majority this time around, for an exchange of votes. Essentially,
Armenians voting for the Tashnaq-supported March 8 list would cross off
the name of one of the opposition’s candidates for the district’s two
Greek Orthodox seats and write Murr’s name instead. For the remaining
seat, Murr asked Tashnaq to get its supporters to distribute their
votes equally between the two Free Patriotic Movement candidates,
MP Ghassan Moukheiber and Ghassan Rahbani, to increase Murr’s chances
of getting elected; a deal Tashnaq insisted they had kept to.

While Murr ending up winning the seat, the supposed Armenian crossover
votes failed to materialize, making his vote totals lower than
he had expected and meaning many on his list failed to make it to
parliament. It is now rumored that Murr will make the community pay
a price for their apparent disloyalty. What is evident is that Murr,
despite his victory, is unhappy with the election results, particularly
concerning Armenian votes, as was made clear on Tuesday. On that day,
Murr held a press conference during which he brandished fake IDs that
he said had been used for voter fraud and announced that he would
contest the results of the Metn race, citing irregularities with the
Armenian vote.

Murr claimed that the total number of Armenian votes in the 2007 Metn
by-election was 9,200 out of a total of 32,341 registered Armenian
voters. This year he said the number of registered voters jumped
to 32,849.

"MP Hagop Pakradounian announced on Monday that 13,700 Armenian
voters cast their ballots on June 7," Murr continued at the press
conference. "The number of ballots increased by 4,371 from 2007
to 2009," he said, while the number of registered voters increased
by only 500. "The increase in percentage from 2007 to 2009 raises
suspicion about the transparency of the elections in the Metn."

Tashnaq responded the next day, when its central committee issued a
statement disputing Murr’s figures as well as the charge that they
had been disloyal or had rigged the vote, claiming instead that "the
percentage of ballots in the Metn district in the 2009 elections
increased by 17% compared to 2007, something which would logically
explain the increase of the Armenian participation in the elections."

"Three days before the elections, Murr asked the Tashnaq to distribute
their votes equally between the two Orthodox candidates of the Free
Patriotic Movement," the statement said, "the party abided by Murr’s
request."

Nareg Abrahamian, who until the very last minute was the March 14
candidate for the Armenian seat in Zahle, said that "it was not the
Armenians who cheated Michel al-Murr in Metn; it was Hagop Pakradounian
and his group of people. I don’t consider them Tashnaq because
the party, in its foundation and principles, is now history. The
people who run it now are not in sync with the parties’ values and
principles. Their behavior shows that they have cheated Michel al-Murr
and the rest of the people. We blame those who believed them."

Still, Abrahamian added that while he wasn’t sure if the Armenian votes
in Metn were fraudulent, he didn’t think it was likely because Tashnaq
was able to get huge numbers of people from outside. "If there was
[fraud] it would probably have been very limited," Abrahamian said.

Pakradounian for his part was not available for comment, despite
numerous requests for an interview, and other Tashnaq officials said
that Pakradounian was the only one qualified to speak for the party.

The perception that Armenians were against the majority has already
sparked grumbling among some March 14 supporters. Indeed, some of
the comments have been sufficiently anti-Armenian in tone to prompt
Prime Minister Fouad Siniora and Progressive Socialist Party leader
Walid Jumblatt to step in. On Thursday, at an event for his new book,
Three Years for the Third Republic Siniora said, "We are hearing
increasingly that so-and-so made it parliament because of the Sunni
vote, or the Shia vote or the Armenian vote. What is this language
we are using? Are the Sunnis, Shia and Armenians not Lebanese?"

One week earlier, Jumblatt denounced what he called attempts to portray
the Armenians and the Tashnaq party as outsiders. "Having the Tashnaq
party disagreeing with a political alliance does not render it alien,"
Jumblatt said, stressing that "Armenians contributed to building
the Lebanese state and were one of the pillars in establishing the
national pact…. They constitute a part of the Lebanese community."

Abrahamian said that "Armenians should not pay the price. It is the
ones who cheated who should pay the price. The Armenian society has
been under pressure for the past six months. They were threatened
and pressured. We disagree with our allies on this because we are
against the way that Armenians are pushed to vote by the Tashnaq."

Many in the community see the need for political unity. Mikael
Vayejian, the director of Radio Sevan, an Armenian station in Beirut,
said that before the election there had been discussions between
Tashnaq and the two other Armenian parties, Ramgavar and Henshag,
both of which are aligned with March 14, to unify. However, talks
between the two sides soon broke down, with the two March 14 parties
asking for equal power, and Tashnaq insisting on a dominant role,
said Vayejian, who is on Ramgavar’s executive committee.

Asked if the three parties might still reconcile now that the election
is behind them, Vayejian said, "No, currently there is no chance."

Maysam Ali contributed in reporting for this article

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress