Author: Kanayan Tamar

Hurriyet Daily News, Turkey
May 4 2012

Armenia fined for Eurovision pull-out
ISTANBUL- Hürriyet Daily News

Armenian band Dorians was meant to represent the state at Eurovision
2012 in Baku.
The European Broadcasting Union has ordered Armenia to pay its entire
participation fee, as well as a fine of 50 per cent, after the country
pulled out of the Eurovision song contest in Azerbaijani capital Baku
after the deadline for quitting had passed.

In addition, Armenia’s public television will be obliged to broadcast
the contest’s final live on the Eurovision night. If it does not
comply with these measures, the country may be forced to skip
Eurovision 2013.

Armenia’s decision to boycott the contest was made after a 20-year-old
Armenian soldier was shot dead on the border between the states.
Initial reports suggested he was killed by an Azerbaijani sniper,
although Baku insists the cause was friendly fire.

Following the soldier’s death, Armenian celebrities called on the
country’s public television to boycott the competition, claiming
Armenian performers would not be safe in Azerbaijan.

The two countries fought a war over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh in
the 1990s. No peace deal has been signed since the 1994 ceasefire.

The boycott announcement was published on the official Eurovision
website, saying that Armenia had decided not to participate in the
song contest to be held between May 22-26.
May/04/2012

Public TV of Armenia
May 2 2012

Revolution main mission of Armenian opposition – politician

An Armenian opposition member has said that revolution is their main
mission today, Armenian Public TV reported on 2 May.
“For us the mission is not the [6 May parliamentary] election, for us
the mission is revolution. Today, a revolution is under way in
Armenia, it started in 2008 and is continuing up to now,” the
coordinator of the opposition umbrella group Armenian National
Congress (ANC), Levon Zurabyan, said in an interview with Armenian
Public TV.

Zurabyan said that people had already decided what they want, and they
would not yield to the “slaveholding system” functioning in Armenia
anymore. According to Zurabyan, an attempt is being made in the
country to create a society ruled by oligarchs, where people will not
be able to have their own business but will have to survive like
“labourers” and “slaves”. In this light, Zurabyan stressed that in
case the ANC entered parliament, it would introduce an anti-monopoly
strategy and boost economic competition.

Zurabyan also touched upon the failed dialogue between the authorities
and the opposition, blaming the authorities for their unwillingness to
follow the path of democratic processes and thwarting the dialogue.
“After this, we could do nothing but to announce our main slogan,
which is ‘Armenia without [Armenian President] Serzh Sargsyan, without
his regime’. And we are trying to unite all political forces and
society to reach this goal,” Zurabyan said, adding that the 6 May
parliamentary election was a good opportunity for reaching this goal.

The ANC coordinator said that the ruling Republican Party of Armenia
(RPA) had no chance to be re-elected to parliament, after having
destroyed Armenia’s economy in the last four years, other than through
massive election fraud. “And in order to prevent this mass election
fraud, to catch the Republican vote-stealer by hand, we have set up a
united headquarters, which includes the Armenian National Congress,
[parliamentary opposition] Armenian Revolutionary Federation –
Dashnaktsutyun, [ruling coalition member] Prosperous Armenia and
[parliamentary opposition] Heritage. Heritage has signed [the
document], its signature is in force, but it does not take part in the
meetings, and it is their choice, they can participate any moment and
have their voice,” Zurabyan said, refusing to comment on Heritage’s
statement on withdrawal from the headquarters.

The ANC member said they had received a historical chance to “get rid
of this regime”. In this light, Zurabyan noted that the ANC had
registered considerable success during its election campaign in
Yerevan and the regions, adding that people’s support and their
“arising spirit” had given much strength to them.

Referring to the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict over the disputed
territory of Nagornyy Karabakh, Zurabyan said that in 1994 Armenia
headed by Levon Ter-Petrosyan, who is currently the ANC leader, had
achieved considerable success in this issue at the OSCE Budapest
Summit, when Nagornyy Karabakh had been recognized as a full party to
the conflict. However, Zurabyan continued, due to the policy pursued
by second Armenian President Robert Kocharyan and acting President
Serzh Sargsyan, Karabakh has been completely ousted from the
negotiating process, where it is now represented by Armenia. Zurabyan
said that in order to solve the issue, Serzh Sargsyan should have
announced that he did not have any “mandate” to negotiate on behalf of
Nagornyy Karabakh.

“He [Serzh Sargsyan] continues to negotiate on behalf of Nagornyy
Karabakh, as a Karabakh native. This, of course, strengthens his
position in the international community, as was the case under Robert
Kocharyan, and ensures a comfortable format for the negotiations, but
it brings no benefit either to Armenia or to Nagornyy Karabakh, which
slowly loses all the prospects of becoming an international entity,”
Zurabyan said, adding that the ANC’s goal was to make Nagornyy
Karabakh a full participant in the negotiating process together with
Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Zurabyan said that if Armenia continued to yield to Azerbaijan in its
development pace, arms, population, economic resources, and if this
strategic imbalance continued to increase between Armenia and
Azerbaijan, the latter would have a “temptation” to solve the conflict
by force. Thus, according to Zurabyan, the only way to prevent such a
scenario and to obligate Azerbaijan to make concessions is Armenia’s
becoming a powerful democratic state.

“We see the Karabakh settlement in mutual concessions, but, first of
all, Azerbaijan has to go for concessions, and this is possible only
in one case, if Armenia starts developing economically, if Armenia
starts to populate Karabakh, if people start to return to Armenia, and
today people are leaving Armenia. Now the most important issue is not
what technical and diplomatic solution we will find to this [Karabakh]
settlement, the solution is in Armenia’s becoming powerful,” Zurabyan
said, adding that only by means of “a democratic revolution” in
Armenia it would be possible to solve the Karabakh conflict.

swissinfo.ch, Switzerland
May 4 2012

Armenia campaign rally blast hurts 144 – officials

YEREVAN (Reuters) – More than 140 people were hurt at a campaign rally
in the Armenian capital Yerevan on Friday, when hundreds of small
balloons went up in flames, burning people and sparking panic, two
days before an election, an emergency official said.

Gas-filled balloons appeared to have exploded after being ignited by a
cigarette at the rally, staged by the ruling Republican Party in
Republic Square in the centre of Yerevan, local media said.

“I heard an explosion and saw flames rising high,” said a 30-year-old
woman who identified herself as Susan. “People rushed away from the
square, and I saw a man with a burnt face and a girl whose back was on
fire.”

A video posted online by Internet television station Panorama.am
showed a large but short-lived flame billowing in the middle of the
crowd where hundred of white balloons had been flying moments before.

Health Minister Harutyun Kushkyan told state television many people
were injured in the chaos as people tried to flee. She described the
condition of the injured as “satisfactory”.

Opinion polls have shown the Republican Party and its coalition ally,
Prosperous Armenia, winning more than 60 percent of the votes in
Sunday’s parliamentary election, signalling little or no change in
government.

The 2008 presidential elections in Armenia – a landlocked ex-Soviet
republic of 3.2 million that is Russia’s main ally in the South
Caucasus – were marred by violent clashes between opposition
protesters and police.

(Reporting by Hasmik Mkrtchan; Writing by Alexei Anishchuk; Editing by
Robin Pomeroy)

Reuters

La Montagne, France
Samedi 5 Mai 2012
Moulins Edition

Harut Yekmalyan expose à L’Incognito

ENCART: Harut Yekmalyan ouvre la saison à L’Incognito. C’est parti
pour une nouvelle saison à « L’Incognito », la galerie d’art de la rue
de l’ancienne église Saint-Germain. Le public peut à nouveau sillonner
cet espace culturel que fait vivre Fabienne et Alain Gauchard. De
nombreux styles de création y sont réunis, et se succèdent
constamment, offrant ainsi au visiteur un visage changeant.

En ce printemps 2012, c’est le dessinateur, peintre et sculpteur
plasticien de la Montagne Bourbonnaise, Harut Yekmalyan, d’origine
arménienne, qui est l’hôte de Fabienne Gauchard. Jusqu’au 23 juin, le
public peut se familiariser avec le style artistique tout en courbes,
qui idéalise la femme. D’ailleurs, cette exposition est intitulée «
Brins de femme ». La plastique féminine, un rien érotique, s’impose
dès le premier regard, et conduit le spectateur de découverte en
découverte. Une récente collection de dessins complète la première
collection plus étourdissante !

Côté cour, Annabelle Delage prolonge cette exposition avec une série
de peintures intitulée « Les nanas » ; de jeunes femmes empreintes de
joie, de sérénité, de réflexion ou les gestes du quotidien deviennent
couleurs et moments de bonheur.
Et toujours la céramique, utilitaire et décorative, les émaux déclinés
en bijoux, bijoux en raku, du tournage sur bois, de la vannerie, de la
gravure, des sculptures métal et de la reliure de création.

è Pratique. L’Incognito, rue de l’ancienne église Saint-Germain. Tél.
04.70.67.05.12, courriel [email protected] Ouvert au public,
du mercredi au vendredi, de 14 h 30 à 19 heures et le samedi, de 10 h
30 à 18 h 30 non-stop.
Harut Yekmalyan ouvre la saison à L’Incognito.

Ouest-France
vendredi 4 mai 2012
stlo Edition

Reflets d’Arménie au Scriptorial : derniers jours

Le 6mai au soir, Scriptorial ferme son exposition temporaire Reflets
d’Arménie. Une exposition cosignée Jean-Luc Leservoisier, sa dernière:
le conservateur du fonds ancien prend sa retraite.

Art, culture, foi, ici et en Arménie.Dans le cadre d’une journée
rencontre organisée par le service diocésain Art, culture, foi,
soixante personnes ont passé la journée à Avranches, mercredi. Une
journée studieuse. Au programme: dans le fonds ancien de la
bibliothèque, au 2e étage de l’hôtel de ville, une conférence sur
l’histoire des pères de l’Église, donnée par le père Nicolas Courtois,
prêtre du diocèse de Coutances et enseignant au Grand séminaire de
Caen. Et la visite guidée et commentée par Jean-Luc Leservoisier,
conservateur du fonds ancien, de l’exposition temporaire que
Scriptorial consacre aux manuscrits et à l’art religieux d’Arménie.

Le musée arménien de Paris fermé.Cette exposition, intitulée Reflets
d’Arménie, est unique en France. Elle permet aux visiteurs d’admirer
des manuscrits et des objets religieux prêtés par le musée arménien de
Paris. Ce musée privé est fermé au grand public. « Plus de 1 200
objets s’y entassent, a déploré Jean-Luc Leservoisier, que personne ne
peut voir. Une lettre va être envoyée au ministre de la Culture pour
qu’il oeuvre à la réouverture de ce musée. La France a tout fait pour
que le génocide arménien soit reconnu. Mais il y a une culture
arménienne et une Arménie vivantes qu’il faut aussi défendre et qui
doivent pouvoir s’exprimer. »

L’art vivant du manuscrit.L’Arménie, ce lointain et magnifique pays,
tête de pont entre l’Orient et l’Occident, est terre chrétienne depuis
17 siècles. Terre de foi, elle est aussi terre de culture et de
l’écrit, du manuscrit sur parchemin au manuscrit sur papier. Cet art
du manuscrit, l’Arménie le cultive depuis toujours et encore
aujourd’hui. Si les moines copistes du Mont-Saint-Michel ne sont plus
qu’un souvenir, si le scriptorium du même Mont a depuis longtemps
fermé ses portes, l’Arménie continue de « calligraphier et enluminer
des manuscrits qui sont de pures merveilles ».

François 1eret les manuscrits arméniens.Scriptorial expose une infime
partie de ces « merveilles ». Dix manuscrits sont prêtés par le musée
arménien de Paris et huit par la Bibliothèque nationale de France qui
en possède 350. Des manuscrits d’une grande valeur, y compris
financièrement. « Les huit manuscrits prêtés par la Bibliothèque
nationale de France ont une valeur d’assurance de 1 800 000 ¤.
»Premiers traducteurs de la Bible et des pères grecs, les Arméniens
ont, dès le Ve siècle, « sauvegardé, en les traduisant, les textes
essentiels, premiers et fondateurs de la pensée chrétienne. C’est pour
cette raison que François 1era acheté de ces manuscrits pour y puiser
des arguments dans la controverse qui l’opposait aux Protestants. »

« Des rouleaux prophylactiques ».Terre de foi, l’Arménie est aussi
terre de croyances. Scriptorial expose des« talismans, des amulettes
qui prennent la forme de rouleaux, de 2 à 20 m de long, que les
Arméniens portaient dans leur poche ou mettaient sous leur oreiller ».
L’un de ces rouleaux « prophylactiques » exposé à Scriptorial
représente « Jésus disputant à un diable les entrailles d’un
nouveau-né ».

Jusqu’au dimanche 6mai inclus, «Reflets d’Arménie», Scriptorial, place
d’Estouteville, Avranches, tél. 02 33 79 57 00. Ouvert de 10 h à 12 h
30 et de 14 h à 18 h vendredi, samedi et dimanche. Dimanche 6 mai à 10
h 30 : petit-déjeuner philosophique : « Sort-on toujours grandi des
revers de la vie ? »

An Academic Right to an Opinion
Inside Higher Ed
May 4, 2012
By
Scott Jaschik

A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that the University of Minnesota
could not be sued because the website of one of its research centers had
labeled another website “unreliable.”

The statements made by the University of Minnesota website were
protected legally — either by being true or by being opinion — said
the ruling by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit. The
website that prompted the suit is run by the Center for Holocaust and
Genocide Studies at Minnesota. Scholars there, consistent with the
consensus view of historians of genocide, include the slaughter of
Armenians during World War I as a case of genocide. The suit challenged
the right of the center to label as “unreliable” a website of the
Turkish Coalition of America that cast doubt on whether the Armenians
experienced a genocide.

Not surprisingly, the case has been closely followed by historians of
that period in history. But the case has also been tracked by scholars
concerned about academic freedom generally, some of whom worried that a
dangerous precedent could have been set by a suit against an academic
center for expressing its views on areas of scholarship. The Middle East
Studies Association, for example, has called on the Turkish Coalition of
American to withdraw the suit.

“We fear that legal action of this kind may have a chilling effect on
the ability of scholars and academic institutions to carry out their
work freely and to have their work assessed on its merits, in conformity
with standards and procedures long established in the world of
scholarship,” said a statement from the group.

An irony of the case is that the label of “unreliable” was removed from
the Minnesota website — at about the time the Turkish coalition was
criticizing it but before the suit was filed in 2010. Minnesota
officials said that they didn’t want to send anyone to the websites that
cast doubt on the Armenian genocide, so they removed the list of
“unreliable” websites from a webpage with teaching and research links.
However, the university has defended the right of the research center to
have had the list up in the first place, and most of the appeals court
decision is written as if Minnesota still had such a link.

Last year, a federal district court ruled that academic freedom
protected the Minnesota website, but the Turkish coalition appealed,
setting up Thursday’s ruling. The appeals court rejected arguments in
the appeal by the Turkish coalition that the university violated its
First Amendment rights and defamed it by identifying the coalition’s
website as unreliable. A central argument by the coalition was that
students at the university would be denied access to the coalition’s
ideas, and thus that the free exchange of ideas was hindered when a
center at a public university labeled the website unreliable.

On the First Amendment issue, the Turkish coalition cited court rulings
in which, for example, secondary schools were found to be violating
First Amendment rights of students by removing certain books from the
library. The appeals court noted that those cases were based on blocking
access to information — something that the court said the University of
Minnesota never did.

“There is no allegation that the defendants impaired students’ access to
the TCA website on a university-provided Internet system,” the appeals
court’s decision says. “There is no hint in the complaint that
university students were not free to, for example, read the TCA website,
e-mail material from the TCA website to their friends, regale passers-by
on the sidewalk with quotes from the TCA website, and so forth. In
short, TCA’s website was not ‘removed’ from the university in any sense.”

The Turkish coalition’s appeal argued that the Minnesota website defamed
the coalition by saying it engages in “denial” of the Armenian genocide,
by calling it “unreliable,” by saying that it features a “strange mix of
fact and opinion,” and that it is “an illegitimate source of
information.” The coalition argued that by labeling its website a
“denial” website, the Minnesota center was maligning it because the term
“denial,” in the context of the study of genocide, “implies denial of
well-documented underlying facts associated with a genocidal event.”

The appeals court ruling, however, says that the issue here is whether
the coalition denies the Armenian genocide. “Because the TCA website
does, in fact, state that it is ‘highly unlikely that a genocide charge
could be sustained against the Ottoman government or its successor’
based on the historical evidence, the center’s statement under this
interpretation is true and, thus, still not actionable,” the appeals
court decision says. “The remaining three statements can be interpreted
reasonably only as subjective opinions, rather than facts,” the opinion
adds, rejecting the defamation charges there as well.

A lawyer for the Turkish coalition did not respond to a request for comment.

Joint headquarter controlling over elections in Armenia to continue cooperation

news.am
May 06, 2012 | 23:40

YEREVAN. – Joint headquarter controlling over parliamentary elections
released a statement claiming the necessity to continue joint efforts
on the election process, appeals and organizing re-counting.

`The inter-party joint headquarter has published the regular statement
recently. It claims, in particular, that the highly untrustworthy
results of the elections only deepen suspicions on legally held
elections.

The joint headquarter believes it necessary to continue joint efforts
on election process, appeals, as well as organizing re-counting,’ the
statement was presented by the ARF Dashnaktsutyun Mp candidate Armen
Rustamyan.

Eight political parties and one bloc participated in the parliament
elections in Armenia: Republican Party of Armenian, Prosperous Armenia
Party, Orinats Yerkir, Armenian National Congress, Heritage Party, ARF
Dashnaktsutyun, the Communist Party of Armenia, Democratic Party of
Armenia and United Armenians Party. For entering a 131-seat National
Assembly (Parliament), parties must poll over 5% of votes, while blocs
– over 7%.

Chicago Tribune, IL
May 5 2012

Factbox: Armenia’s parliamentary election

YEREVAN (Reuters) – Armenia votes on Sunday in a parliamentary
election. Here are some key facts about the former Soviet republic and
main contenders in the upcoming election.

MAIN CONTENDERS IN ELECTION: President Serzh Sarksyan’s Republican
Party, the Prosperous Armenia party led by businessman Gagik
Tsarukyan, the Armenian National Congress – a diverse coalition of
radical opposition groups led by former President Levon Ter-Petrosyan,
the Dashnaktsutiun Party, the Country of Law Party; the moderate
opposition Heritage Party.

Opinion polls show the Republican Party and Prosperous Armenia will
win more than 60 percent of the votes between them, signaling little
or no change in government.

Eight parties and one party bloc are registered for the proportional
component of the election, and 155 candidates are registered in the 41
single-mandate constituencies.

OBSERVERS – More than 300 international observers from the
Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) as well as
about 25,000 local observers will monitor the poll.

KEY FACTS

POPULATION – 3.3 million as of May 2012, according to the National
Statistics Service. Central Election Commission says there are about
2.5 million eligible voters in the country.

GEOGRAPHY – Landlocked, bordering Azerbaijan, Georgia, Iran and
Turkey, Armenia covers an area of 29,800 square km (11,500 square
miles). The capital is Yerevan.

Armenia is locked in a dispute with neighboring Azerbaijan over the
tiny region of Nagorno-Karabakh, over which they fought a war in the
1990s.

Armenia also has fraught relations with Turkey, in part because Ankara
does not recognize as genocide the killing of Armenians in Ottoman
Turkey during World War One.

ECONOMY – The Armenian economy grew 4.6 percent in 2011, recovering
from the 2008-09 global crisis, which resulted in a 14.2 percent
contraction in 2009. The IMF forecasts 3.8 percent growth in 2012.
Inflation fell to 4.7 percent in 2011 from 9.4 percent in 2010, while
the fiscal deficit fell below 3 percent in 2011 from 8 percent in
2009.

(Writing by Margarita Antidze; Editing by Louise Ireland)

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EMG.rs, Serbia
May 6 2012

France, Greece, Serbia, Armenia vote in crucial elections

Four European nations – France, Greece, Serbia, and Armenia – are
holding Sunday, May 6, 2012, crucial elections.

Four European nations – France, Greece, Serbia, and Armenia – are
holding Sunday, May 6, 2012, crucial elections.

France: Anti-Sarkozy Vote?

In France, incumbent President Nicolas Sarkozy is facing his Socialist
challenger, Francois Hollande in the run-off of the French
Presidential Elections, with Sarkozy trailing Hollande by 6 percentage
points in polls Friday.

After eight other candidates were eliminated in the first round on
April 22, Hollande has led Sarkozy in every poll conducted throughout
the campaign.

Hollande, after gaining the endorsement of centrist Francois Bayrou,
who had won 9.1% in the first round two weeks ago, urged voters to
give him enough support so that he can act when he takes office and
not be “a hobbled victor.”

Hollande has promised to renegotiate the European Union’s “fiscal
pact,” which sets tight budget rules, and he called for a “growth
pact” to stimulate stagnant economies and add new jobs.

The choice that French people make will affect France and the European
Union and its attempts to manage the eurozone debt crisis. France is
also a permanent U.N. Security Council member and nuclear power and
has troops on missions abroad, from Afghanistan to Congo.

Greece: Debt-ridden Disillusionment

Debt-ridden Greece is voting Sunday in its first general elections
since in the Socialist Cabinet of George Papandreou stepped down in
the fall of 2011 to make way for a caretaker Cabinet.

Thus, Greeks began voting at 7 a.m. local time (0400 GMT, 12 a.m. EDT)
in their most critical election in decades, with voters set to punish
the two main parties that are being held responsible for the country’s
dire economic straits.

32 parties vie for the votes of nearly 10 million registered voters.
Such is the disillusionment with the socialist PASOK party and
conservative New Democracy, which have been alternating in power for
the last 38 years, that neither is expected to garner enough votes to
form a government, reports say.

Days of wrangling over forming a coalition will likely ensue, with the
prospect – alarming to Greece’s lenders and much of the country’s
population – of another round of elections if they fail.

Serbia: EU Integration Test

Former ultra-nationalist allies of Slobodan Milosevic may return to
power in Serbia, 12 years after the late Balkan strongman was ousted
by pro-Western forces seeking EU membership, international media
report, raising alarm.

The first-round vote on Sunday for Serbian president, and votes for a
250-seat national assembly and local councils, pit pro-EU democrats
against nationalists. The two leading contenders are the Democratic
Party of recent president Boris Tadic and Milosevic’s former ally
Tomislav Nikolic, of the right-wing populist Serbian Progressive
Party.

A presidential run-off is expected on May 20, as both Tadic and
Nikolic are unlikely to get more than 50% of the first-round vote that
includes 12 candidates.

Incumbent President Tadic has urged Serbs to vote for him for the sake
of their country’s EU integration.

Armenia: Democracy Test

Voters in Armenia have begun casting ballots in parliamentary
elections seen as a crucial test of the nation’s stated commitment to
democracy.

Ninety seats in the 131-member National Assembly are being contested
in a proportional vote by nine political forces, including eight
parties and one bloc. Another 41 parliament seats are up for grabs in
single-mandate elections in as many constituencies contested by a
total of 139 candidates on the first-past-the-post basis.

As has repeatedly been stated by Armenia’s international partners,
including the European Union and the United States, and has been
acknowledged by the Armenian leadership, the May 6 polls put on the
line the nation’s broader democratic credentials. Virtually all
general elections held in Armenia during its two decades of
independence have been flawed and fallen short of international
democratic standards.

Opinion polls suggest that Armenian Preisdent Serzh 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.

Chicago Tribune, IL
May 6 2012

Armenia hopes for calm election, democratic result

Margarita Antidze and Hasmik Lazarian
Reuters
1:48 a.m. CDT, May 6, 2012

YEREVAN (Reuters) – Armenian voters headed to the polls on Sunday for
a parliamentary election its leaders hope will bolster stability and
be free of the fraud and violence that marred the South Caucasus
country’s last national election.

The biggest parties in the coalition government, President Serzh
Sarksyan’s Republican Party and Prosperous Armenia led by businessman
Gagik Tsarukyan, are expected to remain the strongest in the former
Soviet republic of 3.3 million.

“All I want is a calm election…I voted for the Republicans, because
I want the government and the president to continue reforms,” Susana
Arakelyan, a 73-year-old pensioner, told Reuters after casting her
ballot at a polling station in central Yerevan.

Voting will last until 8.00 p.m. (4.00 p.m. GMT).

Sarksyan has promised a fair election, portraying the vote as a break
from the past in a country that hankers for stability in order to
boost the economy, devastated by a war with neighboring Azerbaijan in
the 1990s and then hit by the 2008-09 global financial crisis.

“We have managed to turn the political fight into a fair competition,”
he told supporters during campaigning in the mountainous and
landlocked country which has found prosperity elusive since winning
independence from the Soviet Union.

The poll will be monitored by more than 300 international observers
from the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE),
which said the last parliamentary election in 2007 fell short of
international standards.

A blast at a campaign rally injured about 150 people on Friday,
raising fears of a repeat of the violence that killed 10 people after
the 2008 presidential election, but emergency officials said it was
caused by gas-filled balloons exploding.

The violence in 2008, when eight opposition protesters and two police
officers were killed in clashes, dealt a severe blow to the country’s
democratic credentials.

Richard Giragosian, director of the Regional Studies Centre in
Yerevan, said Sunday’s election was a test of the credibility of the
president and government and “an opportunity for the Armenian
president to move beyond the legacy of March 2008 once and for all.”

OIL AND GAS TRANSIT ROUTE

Armenia nestles high in the mountains of a region that is emerging as
an important transit route for oil and gas exports from the Caspian
Sea to energy-hungry world markets, although it has no pipelines of
its own.

Although a ceasefire was reached in 1994, its conflict with Azerbaijan
over the tiny Nagorno-Karabakh region remains unresolved and a threat
to stability.

Relations with another of its neighbors, Turkey, are also fraught
because Ankara does not recognize the killing of Armenians in Ottoman
Turkey during World War One as genocide.

Armenians hope a peaceful election will help speed the country’s
recovery after its economy contracted by 14.2 percent in 2009.

The economy grew by 4.6 percent in 2011 and the International Monetary
Fund expects 3.8 percent growth in 2012. Inflation fell to 4.7 percent
in 2011 from 9.4 percent the year before.

Eight parties and one party bloc are running for seats in parliament
and 155 candidates are registered in 41 single-mandate constituencies.

The ruling coalition previously included two other parties, but one
pulled out in 2009, citing differences over foreign policy. The other
coalition partner, Country of Law, may struggle to cross the five
percent of votes threshold to enter parliament.

Analysts say the Armenian National Congress, a coalition of opposition
groups led by former President Levon Ter-Petrosyan, could make it into
parliament after leading street protests since losing the 2008
presidential poll to Sarksyan.

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