The Armenian Saakashvili?
Having taken a brief look at three political figures, Raffi Hovannisian, Vazgen Manoukian and Levon Ter Petrosian, being put forward by various opposition parties as a possible common candidate to run in the 2008 presidential election, it’s now time to look at the fourth. There is no particular order in looking at any of these candidates although former Speaker of the National Assembly and Orinats Yerkir party leader, Artur Baghdasarian, announced his intention to run before this presidential election blog was launched.
Indeed, not only did Baghdasarian beat all the other possible candidates to the post, but he also pre-empted the 12 May parliamentary election by identifying it as a launchpad to next year’s vote. Moreover, in addition to the Wall Street Journal, other international media outlets covered his potential bid as early as the end of last year. Yesterday, for example, I found an article on Baghdasarian’s 2008 presidential ambitions in the December 2006 issue of Foreign Direct Investment (fDi).
[…] Artur Baghdasarian, a 37-year-old Francophile (and distant relative of French minister Nicolas Sarkozy), is no stranger to the political establishment, having quit his position as speaker of the Armenian national assembly in May. Mr Baghdasarian met fDi in London during a tour of the UK’s political establishment – part of his campaign to dispel international complacency over his country’s affairs, and to establish his own reputation as the most reform-minded candidate likely to emerge.
“For three years I was the speaker of the Armenian assembly,” he says. “Four months ago, I quit my job. I had disagreements with the government. And I think that those disagreements are what constitute the main challenges for the country’s future.”
Mr Baghdasarian insists that if Armenia is to emerge properly as a fully functioning member of the international community, it needs to work on three critical fronts: deepening of democratic reform, fighting corruption and entrenched special interests, and changing what he regards as an insular, unreconstructed and post-Soviet perspective on foreign affairs. Armenia, he argues, should be paving a path toward eventual eligibility for EU and Nato accession – both of which are distant prospects.
Through his resignation, Mr Baghdasarian also pulled his Orinats Yerkir party out of the ruling coalition – a point of principle, or a cunning political manoeuvre, depending on where you stand. The government, he says, is letting down the people through its toleration of the oligarchs and the private monopolies they hold over the economy, and through its resistance to reform.
[…]
While insisting on his own commitment to the electoral process, Mr Baghdasarian hints that if the electorate’s patience with existing political mechanisms fails, things will come to a head. “What happened in Ukraine and Georgia is that society wanted change and new approaches, freedom. You cannot stop a river flowing, however hard you try,” he says.
[…]
Mr Baghdasarian’s ambition to lead Armenia toward Nato and EU accession is, if not far-fetched, long term. But his outlook may prove appealing to Europe and to the US. He is “liked”, according to some sources, by the UK Foreign Office and positively adulated in France, where he was awarded the Legion d’Honneur in 2004 for strengthening French-Armenian relations and “spreading European values”.
References to Ukraine and Georgia are always interesting in the former Soviet space and not least because many opposition parties and civil society activists still believe it is the only way to achieve real democratic change in Armenia. Ironically, however, those same groups also dislike Baghdasarian and perhaps even spent as much time during the parliamentary election trying to discredit him as they did with the ruling Republican and pro-government Prosperous Armenia parties.
This even looked to be the case when a scandal involving Baghdasarian and the British Embassy was apparently orchestrated by the authorities in order to blacken his name and lose his party votes during the parliamentary vote. It is also despite a past record of Baghdasarian speaking out against his then government allies. For example, when the other coalition parties did nothing to protest the indiscriminate beating of opposition supporters in April 2004, Baghdasarian’s word were instead particularly harsh.
Parliament speaker Artur Baghdasarian criticized on Friday the Armenian government’s continuing crackdown on the opposition and made what appeared to be a last-ditch attempt to avert another violent confrontation between the two mutually hostile camps.
“You just can’t open a criminal case against a political party. I don’t know what opposition actions provoked it,” Baghdasarian, referring to the ongoing criminal investigation into the opposition Artarutyun bloc’s campaign for President Robert Kocharian’s resignation.
[…]
“The guillotine is not the best means of treating dandruff,” Baghdasarian said. He specifically denounced police raids on the offices of major opposition parties following the violent dispersal of the April 13 overnight street protest in Yerevan.
[…]
Baghdasarian is the first senior Armenian official to publicly question the authorities’ tactics of dealing with the opposition challenge. And unlike other top allies of President Robert Kocharian, he has refrained from branding the opposition actions as a coup attempt.
True, Baghdasarian was once considered to be Kocharian’s chosen successor until the two came to blows, and it’s also true that the young party leader is considered to be an ambitious politician who has struggled hard to rise up through the ranks since entering parliament as an MP for HHSh. Plus, it was deeply flawed elections held in 2003 that brought Baghdasarian and his party to power as part of the then coalition government. Yet, despite being considered a populist, he has also pretty much stuck to his guns and policy declarations since then.
More interestingly, some observers consider him to be Armenia’s homegrown version of Georgia’s Mikhail Saakashvili, and it’s easy to see why. Both are young and considered reform-minded albeit with accusations that they resort to populism more often than not. Moreover, both resigned government positions on matters of principle and are powerful speakers. However, unlike Saakashvili who is considered even today to be something of a “hothead,” Baghdasarian lacks the revolutionary zeal of his Georgian counterpart, in my opinion.
Nonetheless, with Orinats Yerkir shaping up alongside Raffi Hovannisian’s Heritage party to be the mature opposition Armenia has never had until now, Baghdasarian is certainly a name to look out for, and not least because he has a certain amount of backing in the West as well as some credibility at home.
Artur Baghdasarian, Orinats Yerkir Election Campaign Rally, Matenadaran, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2007
- Published:
- 07.20.07 / 4pm by Onnik
- Category:
- Armenia, Armenia Presidential Election 2008, Candidates, Democracy, Issues, Parties
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