HOW SARGSYAN’S ‘GREATEST PR MISTAKE’ GAVE TER-PETROSSIAN’S CAMPAIGN ‘MUCH-NEEDED’ BOOST
ArmeniaDiaspora.com
Sept 12 2011
Epress.am — Ex-president Levon Ter-Petrossian (LTP) and
president-elect Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan held competing rallies
blocks away from each other in downtown Yerevan the afternoon of Feb.
26, 2008, writes then US Charges d’Affaires in Yerevan Joseph
Pennington in a Feb. 28, 2008 confidential embassy cable recently
made public by WikiLeaks.
“While Sargsyan’s first post-election rally drew approximately 60,000
to 70,000 bussed-in supporters, LTP’s seventh post-election rally in
as many days drew 85,000 to 100,000, his largest so far. Thousands
of Sargsyan participants later defected to LTP’s rally up the street,
where they were rapturously received with chants of “Unite, Unite.”
Some of the bussed-in Sargsyan supporters who joined the LTP rally
appeared visibly dazed by the magnitude of LTP’s support, which,
because of a virtual media blackout, has been grossly misportrayed
by national media.
“Supporters at Sargsyan’s rally appeared to be mainly middle-aged
men and women, with virtually no youth in sight. Banners at the
rally showed people had come from the outlying regions of Yerevan,
though one group Emboffs [embassy officials or officers] spoke with
had come all the way from Javakheti, Georgia. In a scene reminiscent
of mass mobilizations during the Soviet era, banner slogans read
‘Farmers for Serzh,’ ‘Doctors for Serzh,’ and even ‘Tuberculosis
Polyclinic Employees for Serzh.’
“People whom Emboffs surveyed at the rally responded differently on
the reason for their attendance, depending on how Emboffs identified
themselves (either from the US Embassy or simply from America).
People who knew they were talking to diplomats said they came willingly
to the rally, ‘to defend their vote’ for Sargsyan and paid their
own way to Yerevan. One group of women told Emboffs ‘to mind their
own business’ when asked why they came to the rally, barking at the
female FSN translator, ‘Why did YOU come?’ On the other hand, most
men and women who were speaking to Americans said they were obliged
to attend the rally by their supervisors and had been bussed to the
event,” writes Pennington.
The US diplomat then notes that embassy officials timed the departure
of participants at Sargsyan’s rally once he concluded his 30-minute
speech:
“Within the space of eight minutes, approximately 95 percent of the
approximately 60,000-70,000 crowd bolted the rain-drizzled square
for their waiting buses and rides home. Only 2,000 held on in the
drizzling rain, kept there by popular Armenian pop stars who took the
stage after the Prime Minister. A bemused bystander approached Emboffs,
and when Emboff asked him why he was grinning, he incredulously noted,
‘Did you see that – how fast everyone left the square?'”
As for Ter-Petrossian’s rally, Pennington notes this was by
the strongest yet – exceeding his Feb. 17 pre-election rally at
Liberty (Freedom) Square. In terms of demographics, Pennington
cites embassy officials who say they noticed a “greater number of
people” from the regions, from both southern and northern Armenia,
and noticeably younger demographic, but with many middle-aged people
also participating.
Prior to the rally, embassy officials visited two university campuses
to investigate reports of riot police being stationed outside to
deter student participation in Ter-Petrossian’s rally.
“Both campuses had approximately 10-20 riot and regular police outside,
with numerous police vehicles parked in the street. When queried by
Emboffs at Yerevan State University’s (YSU) main campus why they
were there, police – including ranking officers – refused to make
a statement, walked away from Emboffs, and acted as if nobody had
addressed them. A police officer at a YSU affiliate down the street
said they had been dispatched to “preserve order.” A student at
the scene said police had arrived the day before, had engaged with
students and told them not to attend the rally, but were overall
non-aggressive,” reads the cable.
Several businessmen participating in Ter-Petrossian’s rally who were
members of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation-Dashnaktsutyun (ARF-D)
told embassy officials that the “‘dirty’ presidential election was to
blame for the protest. They also said they thought the OSCE’s quick
rush to recognize the election results had contributed to people’s
dissatisfaction with the situation, and actually contributed to the
ongoing protests.”
In his concluding comments, Pennington notes that if Sargsyan’s
goal was to “offset” the ongoing Ter-Petrossian rallies with “a show
of force of his own, he outright failed. In fact, it appears he did
himself more ill than good, giving LTP and their diehard 30,000 cadre a
new influx of thousands of jaded, would-be Sargsyan supporters bussed
into Yerevan by the ruling regime itself. Where previous LTP rallies
appeared to be stagnating in terms of number of supporters, today’s
lopsided duel with Sargsyan’s contrived event appears to have given
the LTP campaign a much-needed infusion of energy, regional support,
and new credibility with the Armenian street. It remains to be seen,
though, how LTP will exploit this showdown, and how Sargsyan will
react to arguably the greatest PR mistake of the increasingly tense
post-election period. Within a matter of hours, today’s dueling rallies
visibly jeopardized Sargsyan’s cultivated image of invincibility.”
Article source:
http://bit.ly/o65ZFu