ARMENIA AFTER ELECTION YEAR
New Eastern Europe
May 8 2013
Category: Articles and Commentary Author:
by Konrad Zasztowt
On May 5th 2013 municipal elections were held in Yerevan. These
were the last in a series of important elections in Armenia, which
started with parliamentary elections in May 2012. On February 18th
the presidential election was held, in which the current president,
Serzh Sargsyan, won. Although he received 58 per cent of votes,
an unexpectedly high result (36 per cent) was achieved by Raffi
Hovannisian, the former foreign minister and leader of the opposition
Heritage party. Hovannisian did not accept the legitimacy of Sargsyan’s
victory, claiming that the election was falsified and that he was
the real winner.
After almost a one-month long hunger strike on Liberty Square in
Yerevan, Hovannisian managed to gather thousands of supporters on
April 9th, the day of the inauguration of Sargsyan’s new presidential
term. This huge manifestation and massive march towards the
presidential palace gave hope to Hovannisian and his team that there
would be a chance for a peaceful change of the current ruling elite.
As Hovannisian and his team have often mentioned, the first opportunity
of gaining success was to be local elections.
And indeed it was, although this opportunity has been lost; and this
was the last opportunity for a long time, as the next elections are
not expected until 2017. Unfortunately for Hovannisian, the results
of the local elections have proved the opinion of many observers of
the Armenian political scene, that the significant social support
given to the Heritage party’s leader in the presidential election
was a consequence of the popular discontent with President Sargsyan
and his Republican Party.
It was not, however, a sign of confidence in Hovannisian and his
political team. In the elections to the Yerevan City Council, the
ruling party received an overwhelming majority of seats (42 from 65).
Hovannisian’s electoral bloc Hello Yerevan came third with only 6
seats after the quasi oppositional Prosperous Armenia party, which
gained 17. It is worth mentioning that in the previous city council
of Yerevan, the opposition, namely the Armenian National Congress,
had 13 seats. The Congress will now not enter the Council and will be
replaced by the Hello Yerevan bloc as the oppositional force. What’s
more important is that the hegemony of the ruling party has been
strengthened.
According to observers from the Council of Europe, the May 5th
elections proceeded peacefully and lawfully, and constituted progress
in comparison with previous elections. Many Armenian opposition
politicians and intellectuals are disappointed with Europe’s
acceptance of the Republican government, which in their opinion is
not legitimate. As Hovannisian said at the meeting on April 9th,
from that moment Serzh Sargsyan “ceases to represent the Republic of
Armenia and the Armenian people”.
Similar radical statements by the opposition claiming the authorities
to be illegitimate were repeated after the parliamentary elections
in 2007 and 2012, as well as the presidential election in 2008. After
the May 5th elections, Hovannisian’s Hello Yerevan bloc already stated
that it will demand a recount of the votes in several constituencies.
Eventually, as it has been many times before, the opposition will be
forced to accept rules set by the authorities and play their game.
Nevertheless, the fact of the lack of Armenian society’s confidence
towards the electoral process and the legitimacy of the authorities
should not be taken for granted. Neither should the fact of the
ruling party’s dominance in parliament and the Yerevan City Council,
nor the weakness of the opposition.
Will this situation lead to the creation of an autocratic system?
Looking back at Armenia’s recent political history, it is easy to prove
that the level of democracy and political freedom has fluctuated. No
doubt the worst situation was in 2008, when ten people were fatally
shot during the demonstrations after the presidential election and
many protesters were arrested. However, in subsequent years the
government started dialogue with the opposition and liberalised the
system. Many observers underlined the relatively high media freedom
in Armenia during the last three electoral campaigns. If it were not
for this evolution, Raffi Hovannisian would not be able to seriously
challenge Serzh Sargsyan in the presidential election.
What forces the authorities to slowly move towards more democratic
standards is certainly not only internal, but first of all external
factors. Perhaps, the most important factors are Armenia’s relations
with the United States and the European Union. Although the impact of
the Armenian American diaspora on the political life in Yerevan is
often overestimated, the ruling elite has to take care of its image
in the eyes of compatriots in Los Angeles, New York and Boston.
One significant example of how important this image is, was Serzh
Sargsyan’s reaction to a letter by Armenian American rock star Serj
Tankian, leader of the cult group System of a Down. Despite the fact of
the harsh, critical tone of Tankian’s letter, accusing the authorities
of rigging the February election, Sargsyan responded to him publicly
in a warm and fatherly manner. What really matters are of course not
the artist’s feelings, but America’s support for Armenia, the country
which has become stuck in a conflict with two strong neighbours and
vulnerable to Russia’s political influence.
The EU’s impact on Yerevan shouldn’t be underestimated either. Former
chief of the Armenian Central Bank Tigran Sargsyan was appointed prime
minister in 2008 as an independent technocrat with a good reputation
in the West. His main goal was to reform the Armenian economy and
integrate it into the global market. Sargsyan’s efforts were not
entirely successful partially due to the resistance of bureaucracy,
as well as the challenges posed by the global economic crisis.
When the EU initiated its new offer to the Caucasus countries in 2009,
in the form of the Eastern Partnership programme, the prime minister
became an eager adherent of the rapprochement with the EU. Armenia has
recently finished negotiations with the EU on the Association Agreement
(AA), which will most probably be initialled during the November
Eastern Partnership Summit in Vilnius. The decisive part of the AA,
which may indeed transform the Armenian economy in the long-term,
is the Deep and Comprehensive Free Trade Agreement with the EU.
Not only are the ruling elite in Yerevan growingly aware of this
fact, but also the business community of Armenia. Thus, one can only
hope that all the political forces in the country, including the
Republicans, the opposition and Prosperous Armenia, currently out of
the government, but still close to it, will support this process.
However, its success is conditioned not only by the authorities’
efforts to reform the economy in line with the EU’s recommendations,
it will also depend on the Republican government’s ability to advance
the democratisation of the country.
After last year’s three electoral victories, the ruling elite in
Yerevan may yield to temptation, making preservation of the hegemony
the only political goal.
Konrad Zasztowt is an analyst at the Polish Institute of International
Affairs (PISM) and specialises in the South Caucasus and Central
Asia regions. Previously he worked at the National Security Bureau
(2008-2010), where he monitored international security issues in
the Black Sea and Caspian regions. He is a graduate of the Institute
of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology and East European Studies at
University of Warsaw and also studied at Yeditepe University in Turkey
(2003-2005). His areas of interest include international relations and
energy security issues in the Black Sea region (Ukraine, the Caucasus,
Turkey) and Central Asia, ethnic and religious minorities as well as
the issue of Islam in the former Soviet Union.
From: Baghdasarian
http://www.neweasterneurope.eu/node/793