ARMENIA RULING PARTY, ARM-WRESTLER CLASH AT POLLS
By Matthew Collin

The Daily Star

May 4 2012
Lebanon

YEREVAN: Armenians vote in parliamentary polls on Sunday that look
set to be a battle for supremacy between the governing party and its
current coalition partner led by a super-rich former arm wrestling
champion.

It is the biggest test of the ex-Soviet state’s democratic credentials
since disputed presidential elections in 2008, when mass rallies
ended in bloody clashes between riot police and opposition supporters
that left 10 people dead, casting a long shadow over President Serzh
Sarkisian’s administration.

Opinion polls suggest that Sarkisian’s Republican party, which
currently has a parliamentary majority, is ahead of its ally in the
outgoing coalition — the Prosperous Armenia party led by millionaire
tycoon and former arm-wrestler Gagik Tsarukian — with opposition
parties trailing behind.

The authorities in the mountainous country of 3.3 million people have
promised an unprecedentedly clean contest for the 131-seat National
Assembly in the hope of winning an uncontested mandate and avoiding
further political turmoil.

“It is our deep inner conviction that we need clear, transparent,
just and fair elections, because if the authorities want to carry
out transformational reform, they need to enjoy the support of the
population,” Prime Minister Tigran Sarkisian of the Republican party
told AFP.

A pre-poll report by OSCE observers did not register systematic
violations, although there have been allegations some parties have
been bribing potential voters with satellite dishes, mobile phones,
food, alcohol and even tractors.

“Some poorer parts of our electorate wait for elections because they
think they will get gifts or benefits,” sociologist Gevorg Poghosian
told AFP.

The Armenian National Congress opposition bloc said the elections were
being held in an “atmosphere of fear and intimidation” created by an
“oligarchic regime” that is preparing to rig the vote.

“Sometimes Armenia looks democratic but this is a facade. We need to
dismantle this mafia-like regime that has hijacked the state for its
personal enrichment,” the bloc’s coordinator, Levon Zurabian, told AFP.

The bloc will launch protests the day after the polls if there is
mass fraud, he said.

Demonstrations have also not been ruled out by Prosperous Armenia,
whose musclebound populist leader Tsarukian keeps lions at his
opulent hilltop villa outside Yerevan and is seen by his supporters
as a benevolent hero for his donations to the poor and financing of
new churches.

“If people are disappointed and frustrated again because the
elections were not conducted in a fair manner and there was fraud and
irregularities, the past problems will be exacerbated which could
lead to a period of instability,” senior party figure and former
foreign minister Vartan Oskanian told AFP.

Issues like poverty, unemployment and emigration have dominated the
campaign, with politicians on all sides promising job creation and
improved social welfare.

The impoverished and landlocked country has suffered economically
because its borders with neighbors Turkey and Azerbaijan are closed
due to political disputes.

No final peace deal has been signed with Azerbaijan since the 1990s
war over the region of Nagorny Karabakh and gun battles often erupt
along the frontline.

Efforts to restore diplomatic relations with Turkey, which could have
ended decades of enmity over the World War I genocide of Armenians
under the Ottoman empire, have also been frozen.

A strong turnout is expected for Sunday’s vote but opinion polls
have suggested that large numbers of voters remain cynical about the
political process and some analysts say the next government needs to
undertake fundamental reforms.

“If we have the best-ever elections, completely free and fair, it
would be an important precedent,” Richard Giragosian of the Regional
Studies Center told AFP.

“But it would still not be enough because the oligarchs will still
be powerful, the parliament will still be inadequate and the rule of
law will still be the law of the ruler,” he said.

From: A. Papazian