ArmeniaNow.com
Preparing for `war’: Analysts/politicians say National
Assembly election is `crucial’
By Gayane Lazarian
ArmeniaNow reporter
Rhetoric and movement and accusations and even murders have signaled,
already, what is likely to become a contentious race for seats in
Armenia’s next Parliament. One analyst says the contest `will resemble
a war’.
Shavarsh Kocharyan
It is eight months until voters will go to polls, but in this startup
period one theme unites those interested in knowing who will fill the
131 seats: the May 2007 election and the 2008 presidential election
will be crucial for Armenia.
`The pre-election situation is unique. On one hand, the authorities
continue to implement non-democratic methods of government. On the
other hand, the Constitutional reforms have for the first time created
an opportunity to change the situation and liberate Armenia from
authoritarianism,’ says the Chairman of the National Democratic Party
of Armenia Shavarsh Kocharyan.
Stepan Zakaryan, member of the Peoples Party of Armenia, believes the
presidential election 2008 will be conditioned by the parliamentary
election in 2007.
`Usually elections to the National Assembly are conditioned by the
presidential elections. Today the situation is the opposite and this
is a new thing,’ Zakaryan says. `The mobilization of the Republican
Party is the response of the authorities to the new situation that
unifies the administrative and the criminal resources.’
Political analyst Suren Surenyants qualifies the situation as a fuse
of authorities and the criminal structures and says the latest
dramatic murders (see ??) are evidence of the latter. He says also,
any illegitimate regime would find itself in a critical situation like
this.
Hrant Khachatryan, the chairman of the Constitutional Right Union,
believes the coming election will give opportunity to make the
relations between the criminal and the anti-criminal forces clear.
Surenyants says the pre-election period is a new phase for the
opposition to appear in a new format.
The Country of Law (`Orinats Yerkir’) political party has made a
statement on its new initiative aimed at ensuring legal electing
process at the coming 2007 parliamentary elections. For this purpose
two main leads were stressed: legislative changes, calling upon the
National Assembly to make amendments to electoral code, and civic will
expression in form of civil movement, which would unite political
powers, NGOs, civil, social movements.
`Otherwise the country will face political upheaval,’ says the
vice-chairman of Ornats Yerkir, Mher Shahgeldyan.. `Such a crisis
would shake the citizens’ confidence and would be accompanied by moral
decline. Armenia will have problems with joining the international
family. And the international democratic community will lose its
interest in Armenia,’
Raffi Hovannisian, the chairman of the Heritage (`Zharangutyun’)
Party, believes none of the opposition parties can, alone, prevent
election fraud.
`The society should decide for itself to whom Armenia belongs, who
will be the true master of the country. I am for big solutions by the
opposition, because local ones are not productive,’ says
Hovannisian. `We are cooperating with the old and new players of the
opposition.’
However, Armenian society strongly holds on to the belief that the
opposition in the country is weak. It is a belief grounded in the
opposition’s inability to unseat the current regime through eight
years of trying, and a perceived helplessness that can be traced to
the infamous events of April 2004 when excessive authoritarian force
literally beat down the opposition, in view of the Presidential
Palace.
Many believe the parliamentary election will result in the
reproduction of the regime.
Surenyants explains that such reproduction of power would mean a
factual loss of independence.
`What can the opposition do if all the leverages are in the hands of
the criminal authorities?! Murders in the streets have become a common
matter!’ says Aram Martirosyan, 57, Yerevan resident.
Surenyants says the opposition is blamed because the incumbent
authorities still run the country.
Hrant Khachatryan
`I should say also that the opposition is powerful. Its resistance
was broken in the 2003 only by means of fraud and the use of force and
mass detainments on April 12th 2004,’ says the analyst. `This means
the authorities used the method of force against the organized
opposition.’
The People’s Party of Armenia says there is need to restore in voters
a belief that their voice does matter.
Grigor Harutyunyan, a member of the National Assembly from the
People’s Party, says: `All those who have participated in the fraud
during the last election must be held to answer. We have to have
independent air on TV, because the fair elections will be impossible
without it. Election is not limited to the very act of
voting. Elections begin much earlier.’
Shavarsh Kocharyan is confident the people, the opposition and the
international organizations are the three structures able to hamper
the reproduction of the incumbent regime. But in order for this to
happen, voters must see an alternative to the authorities.
`Unfortunately the developments in the opposition during the recent
year do not facilitate the emergence of an alternative. Never since
its independence has the country encountered a situation like this
when the disappointment of the society is accompanied by the
opposition’s loss of authority,’ he says.
The Constitutional Right Union believes the reason of the lack of a
developed political field is embedded, because the state never created
a serious precondition for it; moreover, it has always been impeding
its development.
Hrant Khachatryan mentions besides making statements and speeches, the
opposition is engaged also in fortifying its political positions to
have grounds to expect a real unification as well as to get means to
fight against fraud and criminal intimidation. He says the opposition
forces are now engaged in identifying the number of efficient members
able to withstand the election violence.
Davit Hakobyan, the chairman of the Marxist Party of Armenia holds to
another opinion. He believes there are no grounds for the unification
of the opposition and it will take part in the parliamentary election
split.