CANDIDATES KICK OFF ARMENIAN PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN
Astghik Bedevian, Ruzanna Khachatrian, Ruben Meloyan and Anna Saghabalian
Radio Liberty, Czech Rep.
Jan 21 2008
Candidates presented their manifestos and held first meetings with
voters on Monday as campaigning officially got underway for Armenia’s
presidential election that will determine outgoing President Robert
Kocharian’s successor.
Former President Levon Ter-Petrosian was the first to hit the road,
with other major opposition candidates contenting themselves with
holding news conferences and other indoors meetings. For his part,
Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian, the presumed frontrunner, visited
several of his campaign offices in Yerevan.
Sarkisian is scheduled to travel to the southern Vayots Dzor on Tuesday
in his capacity as prime minister. It is not clear if he will hold
official campaign meetings there.
Ter-Petrosian, meanwhile, spent the day touring towns and villages in
central Armenia in a motorcade of about 40 cars that carried leaders
of various opposition groups supporting his presidential bid. His
meetings there appeared to attract considerable interest from local
residents who turned out to hear their former president speak publicly
for the first time in over a decade. Hundreds attended a Ter-Petrosian
rally in the town of Artik, the starting point of the campaign swing.
Addressing the crowd, Ter-Petrosian recalled severe hardship suffered
during the first years of Armenia’s independence which coincided with
the war in Nagorno-Karabakh and broader turmoil in the region. "I know
that during my rule I did not live up to all of your expectations and
hopes," he said. "There were disappointments, there was discontent,
there were very harsh criticisms. I accept all of that."
"And if you think that I am to blame for that, I apologize for my
guilt," added Ter-Petrosian. "I have managed to make sense of the
past. This is all I can do. I can’t do more. So you decide."
The ex-president issued a similar public apology at a big rally in
Yerevan last November. He made it clear at the same time that he
believes that the deprivations of the early 1990s were the inevitable
cost of the Armenian military victory over Azerbaijan,
"I have not come here to ask or beg for votes. That’s Serzh’s business
because he has no votes in Armenia," Ter-Petrosian claimed on Monday,
prompting "Levon! Levon!" chants from the crowd.
Ter-Petrosian again sounded supremely confident of his victory as he
spoke at a similar rally held in another small town, Aparan. "It’s you,
not me, who will win on February 19," he claimed in a town square
opposite Sarkisian’s local campaign headquarters. "I congratulate
you on your victory in advance."
Ter-Petrosian’s local campaign office is run by Razmik Petrosian,
Aparan’s former mayor and a veteran of the Karabakh war.
"Ter-Petrosian remains my commander-in-chief," he told RFE/RL.
Ter-Petrosian’s wartime leadership of the country was also evoked by
other local residents. "We have had only one victor in our history
and that person is Levon Ter-Petrosian," said one man. "I will vote
for Levon because he is an intelligent man," reasoned another.
But the crowds attracted by Ter-Petrosian were clearly not made up
only of the ex-president’s sympathizers. "I will listen to everyone
before making up my mind," said one undecided voter in Aparan.
"I’m here because I am idle," said another, older man. "I don’t
trust anyone."
Another major opposition contender, former parliament speaker Artur
Baghdasarian, kicked off his campaign, titled "A civic movement for
new Armenia," with an official presentation of his 32-page election
manifesto in Yerevan. "My victory will eliminate corruption and
embezzlement rooted in the country," he told to journalists and
activists of his Orinats Yerkir party. "My victory will mean equality
before law, a drastic rise in the living standards of the people
of Armenia."
Baghdasarian dismissed claims by government loyalists that the Armenian
opposition can not scuttle a handover of power from outgoing President
Robert Kocharian to Sarkisian because it has failed to field a single
presidential candidate. "There are and there will be alliances,"
he said without elaborating. "As for the authorities, they are not
united either," he added, noting that Sarkisian is also challenged by
a candidate of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun),
a junior partner in the governing coalition.
The Dashnaktsutyun candidate, Vahan Hovannisian, held a similar
campaign event in Yerevan later in the day. Both he and Baghdasarian
have said that the presidential election will require two rounds
of voting.
Also meeting journalists was another opposition candidate, Artashes
Geghamian. Geghamian again spent much of his news conference,
supposedly devoted to his campaign platform, attacking Ter-Petrosian
and denouncing what he called a "barbaric" smear campaign waged
against him by opposition newspapers. The latter have alleged that
Geghamian was bribed by the authorities to enter the fray with the
sole aim of discrediting the ex-president.
Geghamian’s opposition credentials were also questioned over the
weekend by the Zharangutyun party of Raffi Hovannisian, a major
opposition group that has so far declined to endorse any of the
presidential hopefuls. "Mr. Geghamian’s recent political behavior
raises questions about his being in opposition and reinforces the
government’s positions," Hovsep Khurshudian, a Zharangutyun spokesman,
told RFE/RL.
Geghamian is not the only opposition candidate highly critical
of Ter-Petrosian. Vazgen Manukian, Ter-Petrosian’s erstwhile
comrade-in-arms and a longtime political rival, clearly had the
ex-president in mind on Monday when he urged disgruntled voters
not to look for a "lesser evil." While having no fond memories of
Ter-Petrosian’s years in power, many of them are even more unhappy with
the current Armenian leadership and feel that only he can unseat it.
"An election must represent a choice between the good and the bad,"
Manukian said in a meeting with a group of young Armenians. "The
people must choose the good, and not the lesser evil."