Institute for War and Peace Reporting
(CRS No. 283, 21-Apr-05)
Armenia: a Spring Awakening?
First rumblings of the contest to be the next Armenian president.
By Susanna Petrosian in Yerevan
After a lull of a year, Armenia’s domestic politics are livening
up again. New opposition movements are being formed and the speaker
of parliament is showing signs of political ambition.
For the moment, though, these political stirrings – both by emerging
groups and established opposition parties – have largely left the
public unmoved. According to Natalya Martirosian, coordinator of
the Armenian office of the Helsinki Citizens Assembly, a new group
calling itself Bekum, or Breakthrough, could emerge as a potent force
for change.
“The creation of Bekum is one of the potential steps towards change
in this country,” she told IWPR.
Bekum was set up by a number of non-government organisations, NGOs,
which want to see swifter progress towards a civil society.
At the beginning of April, another group called the National League for
Armenian Independence was formed, with the declared aim of opposing any
political decision that it believes poses a threat to the country’s
independence. The group pledged to use all constitutional means to
ensure that “passive social protest becomes active”.
There has been a marked revival in the activity of mainstream
opposition parties, too. The opposition New Times and Republic Party
both held conferences recently, while the Justice bloc held a forum
at which there were calls for the resignation of the administration
of President Robert Kocharian.
Aram Karapetian, leader of the New Times party and an unsuccessful
candidate in the 2003 presidential election, believes that the
evolutionary approach is not working and the only way forward is
the kind of peaceful revolution that occurred in Georgia, Ukraine
and Kyrgyzstan.
“I am sure that we will succeed in uniting the dissatisfied masses,
pressure from which will force the government to step down. Victory
is inevitable,” said Karapetian.
The leader of the Republic Party, former prime minister Aram Sarksian,
voiced similar views, “In Armenia, we have reached a situation where we
need not just a change of power, but revolution. Many people agree with
this, and we need only to get together at a certain time and place.
“A nationwide revolution will take place unexpectedly – and not one
window pane will be broken.”
Leaders of the nine-party parliamentary faction Justice are taking a
less radical position. They believe that the government can still be
removed by constitutional means, with the best option being to hold
a national referendum expressing no confidence in the president.
“We favour a calm and peaceful solution to events,” said Justice
faction secretary Viktor Dallakian.
For the moment, President Kocharian appears more secure than his
counterparts in other parts of the former Soviet Union. He is three
years away from the end of his second and final presidential term in
2008. To achieve the kind of national ballot it wants, the opposition
would have to get parliament – with its pro-government majority –
to agree amendments to the law governing referendums.
The opposition has been boycotting sessions of parliament for more than
a year. Despite this, opposition deputies make monthly statements and
are given a small amount of airtime once a week on national television.
Pro-government politicians say the current opposition poses them
no threat. “There will be no outside-inspired revolution in Armenia
because, unlike other former Soviet republics, Armenia cannot create
problems for the superpowers,” said Galust Saakian, leader of the
Republican Party of Armenia faction, a pro-government group (not to
be confused with the Republic party).
“Both the opposition and the government will be careful not to erase
15 years of statehood for the sake of satisfying the great powers
and other dubious forces,” said Prime Minister Andrannik Margarian
robustly.
Government supporters say Armenia lacks the same kind of problems that
made revolutions possible in Georgia, Ukraine and Kyrgyzstan. Moreover,
they believe a prerequisite for this kind of revolution is the catalyst
provided by elections, which in Armenia’s case are more than two
years away.
“It’s highly unlikely that there’ll be a new scenario in Armenia,”
said Samvel Nikoyan, a pro-government member of parliament.
Kocharian was in confident mood when he spoke to students in Yerevan
on April 11, telling them, “I call on the opposition to stop worrying
about the fact that they are weak and have achieved nothing. They
have achieved nothing because the country and government is better.”
However, some observers reading the political runes in Armenia say
they see signs of nervousness at the top, and even the start of a
campaign to succeed Kocharian from inside the ruling elite.
At the end of March, Kocharian was invited to Paris by French president
Jacques Chirac. But for the first time in his seven-year presidency,
Kocharian declined an invitation to go abroad.
Although official sources cited a leg injury as the reason, the
opposition press wrote that the president had no health problems,
so there was speculation that the delay had a political rather than
a medical cause. The Armenian president finally left for France on
April 20.
His trip took place just as National Assembly speaker Artur Bagdasarian
– whose position makes him the second most senior official in Armenia’s
hierarchy – was making his presence felt.
Two weeks ago, an article written by Bagdasarian appeared in the press,
discussing the need to hold democratic presidential and parliamentary
elections in Armenia.
Many observers believe that Bagdasarian’s article is essentially a
pre-election political manifesto. “The revolution has already begun:
read Bagdasarian’s article carefully,” said opposition leader Aram
Sarkisian. Bagdasarian’s Orinats Yerkir or Country of Law party has
also been courting other parties, including opposition groups.
Even some of Bagdasarian’s colleagues from the ruling coalition say the
speaker is beginning an election campaign. “He has turned parliament
into an election headquarters,” said Galust Saakian.
Bagdasarian recently made a high-profile trip to Moscow, where he
discussed economic matters with Russia’s minister of transport and
the co-chairman of the Armenia-Russia intergovernmental commission,
even though these issues are the business of the government rather
than parliament.
With Kocharian’s return from France, political commentators are
waiting for the next episode in this slowly evolving political drama.
Susanna Petrosian is a journalist with Noyan Tapan news agency.