Friday,
Armenia’s Heated Election Campaign Ends
• Gayane Saribekian
• Robert Zargarian
• Naira Bulghadarian
Armenia - The opposition Hayastan alliance led by former President Robert
Kocharian holds its last campaign rally in Yerevan, .
Campaigning officially ended in Armenia on Friday for Sunday’s parliamentary
elections which appear to be the most unpredictable in the country’s history.
Former President Robert Kocharian’s Hayastan (Armenia) alliance, widely seen as
the main challenger of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s Civil Contract party,
held its last campaign rally, attended by thousands of supporters, in Yerevan’s
central Republic Square.
The sprawling square was the scene of a large demonstration held by Civil
Contract the previous night. Another major election contender, the opposition
Prosperous Armenia Party (BHK) led by businessman Gagik Tsarukian, also
concluded its campaign on Thursday evening with a rally held elsewhere in the
city center.
Kocharian and his political allies again pledged to restore security in Armenia,
end the country’s post-war political crisis and kick-start its economy as they
addressed supporters demonstrating outside the prime minister’s office.
“These authorities are not capable of solving any of these problems because they
themselves created and are still fuelling these problems. We are coming to put
an end to all this,” said the 66-year-old ex-president, who had ruled Armenia
from 1998-2008.
“Trust us. Allow us to assume responsibility for the country’s future and push
country forward in all directions,” he said in a speech repeatedly interrupted
by “Kocharian!” chants from the crowd.
Kocharian again expressed confidence that his bloc will win most votes in the
snap elections meant to end a serious political crisis resulting from Armenia’s
defeat in the autumn war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
“We started an election campaign and are now concluding a victorious campaign,”
he declared.
Armenia - Former President Robert Kocharian greets supporters during an election
campaign rally in Yerevan, .
Pashinian predicted that his party will score a “crushing” victory in the polls
when he addressed supporters on Thursday.
The 12-day campaign has been marked by bitter accusations and threats traded by
Pashinian and Kocharian and another ex-president, Serzh Sarkisian, who is also
challenging the incumbent. Sarkisian leads an opposition bloc called Pativ Unem.
Other, more moderate opposition contenders, notably the Bright Armenia Party
(LHK), have sought to cast themselves as an alternative to the country’s current
and former rulers.
Campaigning in Yerevan’s northern Arabkir district on Friday, LHK leader Edmon
Marukian reiterated that he will try to form a “government of national unity”
comprising all rival factions if his party again wins seats in the National
Assembly.
“We will do everything to make this agenda prevail,” Marukian told reporters.
“This agenda reflects the people’s demand.”
Meanwhile, former President Levon Ter-Petrosian, who leads the opposition
Armenian National Congress (HAK), hit out at the “rival extremist forces,” in a
clear reference to Pashinian on one side and the opposition forces led by
Kocharian and Sarkisian on the other. He claimed that the political crisis will
only deepen if one of them wins the elections.
“These forces have nothing to say or to do about the country’s future,”
Ter-Petrosian said in a video appeal to Armenians.
A total of 26 parties and alliances are running for at least 101 seats in the
Armenian parliament under the system of proportional representation. The parties
need to win at least 5 percent of the vote in order to be represented in the
legislature and potentially form a new government. The vote threshold for
alliances is set at 7 percent.
ARMENIA -- Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian gives a speech during a
campaign rally in central Yerevan,
The tense election campaign has also been marred by mutual accusations of foul
play, arrests of opposition activists accused of bullying or bribing voters, and
at least one reportedly violent incident.
On Friday, law-enforcement authorities detained Armen Charchian, the director of
a Yerevan hospital running for the parliament on the Hayastan ticket, after a
local non-governmental organization publicized a leaked audio recording of his
meeting with hospital personnel.
Charchian can be heard telling them that they must participate in the June 20
elections. “After the elections I will take voter lists and see who went to the
polls and who didn’t,” he warns.
It was not clear if Charchian explicitly told his employees to vote for Hayastan.
A senior Hayastan figure condemned the prominent medic’s arrest and demanded his
release at the start of Kocharian’s rally.
The Special Investigative Service (SIS) also announced the arrest of an unnamed
election candidate of Pativ Unem accused of vote buying. The opposition bloc did
not immediately react to it.
Five other individuals, all of them opposition candidates or supporters, were
arrested earlier on charges of trying to hand out vote bribes.
Also taken into custody on Thursday was the director of a cultural center in the
southeastern town of Goris run by a senior Hayastan member. He allegedly
threatened to fire one of his employees who took part in Pashinian’s rally held
there earlier this week. The Kocharian-led bloc demanded his immediate release.
Several Hayastan and Pativ Unem sympathizers holding senior positions in
schools, provincial medical centers and other public institutions have claimed
in recent days to have been fired for publicly showing support for Pashinian’s
political foes. Law-enforcement authorities have not yet reacted to their
allegations.
Hayastan also said that several of its activists in another southeastern town,
Yeghegnadzor, were detained and beaten up by local police when Pashinian held a
campaign rally there this week. Prosecutors instructed the SIS to look into
these claims.
Russia Warns Of Response To Turkish Military Base In Azerbaijan
• Aza Babayan
Armenia - Russian soldiers march during an official Armenian ceremony to mark
the 76th anniversary of Soviet victory in World War Two, Yerevan, May 9, 2021.
Russia will take steps to ensure its national security if Turkey opens a
military base in Armenia, the Kremlin said on Friday.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan did not rule out Turkey’s permanent
military presence in Azerbaijan after visiting on Tuesday the Nagorno-Karabakh
town of Shushi (Shusha) captured by Azerbaijani forces during last year’s war.
In a joint declaration signed there, Erdogan and his Azerbaijani counterpart
Ilham Aliyev pledged to further deepen military and other ties between their
nations. Aliyev said the declaration calls for their “mutual military
assistance” in the event of an armed conflict with third states.
Erdogan on Thursday did not exclude a Turkish military base in Azerbaijan.
“There may be development, expansion here later,” he told Turkey’s NTV channel.
Commenting on Erdogan’s statement, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said: “The
deployment of military infrastructure by the [NATO] alliance countries near our
borders is cause for our special attention as well as a reason for us to take
steps to ensure our security and interests.”
Peskov also said Russia is “in close contact” with Turkey, Azerbaijan and
Armenia on “further stabilizing the situation” in the South Caucasus after the
Armenian-Azerbaijani war stopped by a Russian-brokered ceasefire in November.
Regional players must not take actions containing “any elements that could cause
a rise in tensions,” Russian news agencies quoted him as saying.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov was more dismissive of the talk of
Turkish military presence in Azerbaijan. “We have not discussed that issue and
do not comment on rumors,” he told a news conference on Friday.
Turkey's President Tayyip Erdogan and Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev,
accompanied by their wives Emine Erdogan and Mehriban Aliyeva, visit Shusha on
June 15, 2021.
Lavrov’s remarks contrasted with concerns voiced by some Russian lawmakers and
pundits. Gazeta.ru, a major Russian news website, said Moscow’s reaction to a
possible Turkish military deployment in Azerbaijan would be “very negative.”
It quoted Alexander Sherin, the deputy chairman of a Russian parliament
committee on defense, as saying that Azerbaijan can already be considered a de
facto NATO member because its soldiers fought alongside Turkish troops against
Russia’s ally Armenia during the Karabakh war. “Its de jure membership [in NATO]
is only a matter of time,” claimed Sherin.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry has condemned Aliyev’s and Erdogan’s visit to
Shushi as a “provocation against regional peace and security.”
In a statement released on Thursday, the ministry accused Turkey and Azerbaijan
of threatening Armenia’s territorial integrity after their “joint aggression”
against Karabakh. It pointed to the Shushi declaration’s references to a
“corridor” that should connect the Nakhichevan exclave with the rest of
Azerbaijan via Armenia’s Syunik province.
Ankara lent Baku strong military and diplomatic support during the six-week
Karabakh war. Yerevan says that Turkish military personnel participated in the
hostilities on the Azerbaijani side along with thousands of mercenaries
recruited in Syria’s Turkish-controlled northern regions.
The truce accord led to the deployment of 2,000 Russian peacekeeping soldiers in
Karabakh. Russia has also deployed soldiers along some sections of Armenia’s
border with Azerbaijan.
Kocharian Endorsed By Former PM, Ex-Army Chief
• Gayane Saribekian
Armenia - Former President Robert Kocharian (L) and former Prime Minister Karen
Karapetian meet at the election campaign headquarters of the opposition Hayastan
alliance, Yerevan, June 15, 2021.
Armenia’s former Prime Minister Karen Karapetian and former top army general,
Onik Gasparian, have urged voters to back an opposition alliance led by former
President Robert Kocharian in Sunday’s general elections.
In separate statements, they described Kocharian as an experienced and competent
leader who can confront grave security challenges still facing the country after
last year’s war in Nagorno-Karabakh.
“I believe that in this situation we must support Armenia’s second President
Robert Kocharian and all those forces that are fighting against the current
authorities,” read the statement released by Gasparian on Friday, the last day
of campaigning for the snap elections.
Gasparian accused Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian of trying to scapegoat the
Armenian military and dodge responsibility for Armenia’s defeat in the war in
hopes of “retaining power at any cost.”
The general was fired as chief of the Armenian army’s General Staff in early
March after he and four dozen other high-ranking officers accused Pashinian’s
government of misrule and demanded its resignation. The demand was hailed by
Armenian opposition groups but rejected as a coup attempt by Pashinian.
Gasparian challenged his sacking in court. Pashinian has repeatedly attacked him
during the election campaign.
ARMENIA -- Colonel-General Onik Gasparian.
Karapetian endorsed Kocharian on Monday. In a written statement, he said the
ex-president can “get the country out of the crisis,” “quickly restore our
security system” and make Armenia a “predictable and trustworthy partner” for
foreign powers.
“He will create an environment where our society’s potential will be realized in
full and we will have a national, modern, rational and efficient state,” added
the statement.
Kocharian and Karapetian met at the ex-president’s election campaign
headquarters in Yerevan and dined at a restaurant in Gyumri in the following
days. A short video released by Kocharian’s Hayastan (Armenia) alliance showed
the two men strolling in downtown Gyumri late on Wednesday.
Hayastan is widely seen as the main opposition challenger of Pashinian and his
Civil Contract Party. It was due to conclude its election campaign late on
Friday with a rally at Yerevan’s central Republic Square.
Karapetian was appointed as prime minister in September 2016 by then President
Serzh Sarkisian. The former business executive ceded that post to Sarkisian and
was named first deputy prime minister in April 2018 after the latter engineered
Armenia’s transition to a parliamentary system of government.
Karapetian became the country’s acting prime minister just one week later, after
Sarkisian resigned amid Pashinian-led mass protests against his continued rule.
But he too had to step down after the former Armenian parliament reluctantly
elected Pashinian prime minister in May 2018.
Sarkisian now leads another opposition bloc running in the June 20 elections.
Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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