ARMENIA: ELECTION RACE AGAINST PM’S BROTHER COULD PROVE PRESSURE COOKER
Haroutiun Khachatrian
EurasiaNet, NY
April 6 2007
As Armenia’s parliamentary elections approach, attention is focusing
on how its relatively fragmented opposition will fare at the polls,
and whether any government pressure will be applied to sway the vote.
The recent withdrawal of a former Nagorno Karabakh military leader
from a race that would have pitted him against the brother of newly
named Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian has become a campaign case study
for this question.
Twenty-four parties and one election bloc have so far been registered
to take part in the May 12 parliamentary elections. Nineteen of the
parties, ranging from the Communist Party to the strongly pro-Western
Heritage Party, are pro-opposition. The single election bloc registered
calls for the impeachment of President Robert Kocharian on the basis
of what it claims was the rigged 2003 presidential election. One
hundred and forty-one candidates have been registered for 41
first-past-the-post district races.
Final registration ends on April 7. The official campaign season
starts on April 8.
Despite their numbers, opposition parties, however, claim that they
are ill-matched for the fight ahead, which is expected to be dominated
by the two pro-government heavyweights, Republican Party of Armenia,
which holds the largest parliamentary faction, and newcomer Prosperous
Armenia, which claims the largest membership (370,000) among Armenian
political parties. [For details, see the Eurasia Insight archive].
Instead, relatively weak opposition parties are choosing their battles
carefully. Arshak Sadoian, the founding president of the National
Democratic Alliance Party and a veteran parliamentarian, has withdrawn
from a first-past-the-post race in Yerevan to avoid conflict with
another opposition politician and to save party resources for the
proportional vote. Another small opposition party, the pro-Western
Liberal Progressive Party, took the opposite strategy, withdrawing
from the proportional race in an attempt to improve the chances of
its leader, Hovhannes Hovhannisian, to win in a single mandate race.
The test case for these maneuvers, however, has been the March
27 withdrawal of Samvel Babaian, leader of the Dashink (Alliance)
Party and former de facto defense minister of the separatist Nagorno
Karabakh region, from a race in the southern city of Goris that would
have pitted him against parliament deputy Alexander Sarkisian, the
51-year-old brother of newly named Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian.
Instead of Babaian, Dashink will support Samvel Haroutiunian,
a candidate backed by former Foreign Minister Raffi Hovannisian’s
Heritage Party.
The race in electoral district #37 between Sarkisian, a member of
the ruling Republican Party of Armenia now headed by his brother,
and Haroutiunian is expected to be one of the election’s fiercest.
Already, it has attracted widespread media coverage.
Concerns that heavy government pressure had been brought to bear
in Goris in favor of then Defense Minister Serzh Sarkisian largely
motivated this interest. With Serzh Sarkisian now appointed as
prime minister, that interest is only likely to increase. The
53-year-old minister, like Babaian a native of the disputed Nagorno
Karabakh region, however, has pledged to ensure that a free and fair
parliamentary vote is held nationwide.
Questions raised by the Central Election Commission (CEC) about
whether or not Babaian had met the five-year residency requirement
for running for parliament were among the events originally cited to
suggest that the government had a hand in the Goris race. The former
military commander had submitted documents to the CEC indicating that
he had lived in Stepanakert, the capital of Nagorno Karabakh, from 1994
until 2006, Aravot newspaper reported. (Babaian moved to Armenia after
being amnestied in 2004 from a 14-year prison term for an alleged plot
to assassinate de facto Nagorno Karabakh President Arkady Ghukassian.)
In the end, however, Babaian was registered as a candidate for
proportional election on Dashink’s 38-member party list.
The residency issue was not Babaian’s only difficulty, however.
Hmayak Hovhannisian, an unaffiliated parliamentarian who ranks number
four on the Dashink party list of candidates for proportional election,
told 168 Zham newspaper on March 24 that the National Security Service
had interrogated Babaian about allegations that one of his bodyguards
possessed an illegal weapon. "This was an attempt to exert pressure
on us," Hovhannisian claimed.
As often in Armenian politics, ulterior motives were sought as well.
Media outlets have cited Babaian as a likely candidate to replace
Prime Minister Sarkisian as defense minister, with some implying
that the ex-military leader bowed out of the race against Alexander
Sarkisian to enhance his chances for the post. Others have also
contended that the 40-year-old Babaian may himself run for president
of the self-declared Nagorno Karabakh Republic in July.
Despite the speculation, Dashink Party officials, however, have
not stated that government pressure was the reason for Babaian’s
withdrawal from the Goris race. In a March 27 interview with news
agency Noyan Tapan, Gnel Ghlechian, a member of the party’s ruling
council, cited disappointment with the inability of opposition parties
to consolidate locally as a reason for the decision. Local government
officials had made deals with opposition members, Ghlechian charged,
and had "made use of all administrative and material resources"
to deprive opposition members of a fair chance to campaign.
On April 6, domestic election observation group It’s Your Choice
stated that it will closely monitor the race in Goris for detection
of any such practices, the A1+ news site reported.
Editor’s Note: Haroutiun Khachatrian is a Yerevan-based writer
specializing in economic and political affairs.