ARMENIAN GOVERNMENT, PARTIES PREPARE FOR PARLIAMENTARY POLLS
Emil Danielyan
EurasiaNet, NY
Nov 9 2006
Armenia’s leading political groups are gearing up for next spring’s
parliamentary elections, which could determine who succeeds President
Robert Kocharian in 2008. A key issue surrounding the legislative vote
is whether Armenia will be able to shed its post-Soviet reputation
for electoral fraud.
Armenian government officials and their allies insist that they will
do their best to make the vote free and fair. But their political
opponents are skeptical, believing instead that incumbent authorities
are intent on engineering a transfer of power from Kocharian to his
most influential associate, Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisian. The
United States and the European Union also have concerns about a
possible repeat of the serious fraud that has marred just about every
Armenian election held over the past decade. [For background see the
Eurasia Insight archive].
Officials in Yerevan hope to dispel those concerns with a package of
amendments to Armenia’s electoral code that are meant to forestall
various voting irregularities. Parliament approved the amendments in
the first reading on October 24, and they are now undergoing a review
by Council of Europe legal experts. One of them is designed to prevent
ballot box stuffing by requiring voters put their marked ballots
into special envelops before casting them. Other proposed changes
would give more rights to election candidates’ proxies and obligate
election commissions to videotape the nationwide vote count and release
preliminary turnout figures within five hours of the polls’ closure.
"These amendments will make the electoral process in our country more
democratic," one of their authors, Samvel Nikoyan of the governing
Republican Party of Armenia (HHK), told fellow lawmakers.
The Armenian opposition is unconvinced, however, pointing to the
authorities’ rejection of other amendments put forward by opposition
parliamentarians. One such proposal envisaged that Armenians going to
the polls would have their fingers marked by indelible ink to make it
easier for election officials to prevent multiple voting. Opposition
leaders also claim that the changes in electoral legislation will
prove meaningless because the authorities lack the "political will"
to hold a democratic election and run the risk of losing power.
"These authorities have one aim: to retain power," Aram Sarkisian,
a radical leader of the opposition Justice alliance, told EurasiaNet.
"The only way to attain it is to rig elections. That is why we insist
that in this country democratic elections can take place only after
a democratic revolution resulting in regime change."
The HHK, of which Serzh Sarkisian is the unofficial leader, is the
main source of election-related concerns voiced by the opposition and
even some pro-Kocharian parties, notably the Armenian Revolutionary
Federation (ARF). They already accused it of resorting to fraud to
win the last parliamentary elections held in 2003. [For background
see the Eurasia Insight archive]. HHK leaders do not deny that victory
in the upcoming polls is vital for the success of Sarkisian’s reputed
plans to succeed Kocharian, whose second term ends in 2008.
But they say that they will not seek to win at any cost.
Such assurances are clearly not taken at face value by other major
political forces. The ARF, the HHK’s junior partner in the governing
coalition, warned earlier this year that it will join the opposition
camp if the 2007 polls, too, fall short of democratic standards.
Similar warnings have also been issued in recent months by Foreign
Minister Vartan Oskanian, who has had to personally deal with the
international fallout from Armenia’s past flawed elections. "Everyone
must realize that we simply have no more room for holding bad elections
because this time the damage to our people would be not only moral,
but also material," he said in an October 19 interview with the
Yerevan daily Haykakan Zhamanak.
Oskanian alluded in particular to $235.6 million in additional
economic assistance which the United States administration has
earmarked for Armenia under its Millennium Challenge Account (MCA),
a scheme designed to promote political and economic reforms around the
world. US officials indicate that Yerevan has pledged to improve its
human rights and democracy records in return. "These are important
commitments and the United States stands ready to help Armenia to
ensure that its upcoming elections are free and fair," Secretary
of State Condoleezza Rice said during the signing of Armenia’s MCA
compact in Washington last March.
The European Union (EU), for its part, has made it clear that failure
to meet that standard would call into question Armenia’s forthcoming
participation in the European Neighborhood Policy program that
entitles it to a privileged relationship with the bloc. "If there
are deficiencies [in the conduct of the 2007 elections], they will be
noticed and there will be consequences," Finnish Foreign Minister Erkki
Tuomioja, whose country currently holds the EU’s rotating presidency,
warned after talks with Armenian leaders in Yerevan on October 2.
Both the US and EU have indicated their unease with the fact that the
Armenian authorities have yet to formally ask the Organization for
Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) to monitor the polls. The
Western concerns seem to stem from the Kocharian administration’s
failure to extend such an invitation ahead of last November’s
disputed constitutional referendum. [For details, see the Eurasia
Insight archive.]
During an October 17-19 visit to Yerevan, US Ambassador to the OSCE
Julie Finley elaborated on these concerns. "The OSCE is the gold
standard for monitoring elections," she said in an interview done by
this reporter for Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. "They [the OSCE
monitors] are coming to the United States to monitor our mid-term
elections in November. Why the heck shouldn’t they be over here to
monitor the Armenian elections?"
Citing a busy schedule, Kocharian, however, pointedly declined to
meet the visiting US diplomat. Finley, who met a host of other senior
Armenian officials, said that she was "very, very disappointed" by
the president’s inability to meet with her. "Usually in my travels
[to OSCE member states] I do meet with the head of state," she said.
The Armenian leader instead discussed the elections with the
Yerevan-based ambassadors of major European Union countries on October
27. His office quoted him as assuring them that "both long-term and
short-term international monitoring missions will be invited for the
observation of electoral processes" in Armenia.
Editor’s Note: Emil Danielyan is a Yerevan-based journalist and
political analyst.