2008 Presidential Election Monitor

As the presidential election scheduled for 19 February 2008 draws ever closer, the political temperature in the Republic continues to rise. At stake is the issue of succession to the incumbent president, Robert Kocharian, who under the Armenian Constitution can not run for a third consecutive term in office. Yet, although many election observers focus on the unfolding battle between the prime minister, Serzh Sarkisian, and former president, Levon Ter Petrosian, there are other candidates who will soon be known.

One of them will be nominated by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation — Dashnaktsutyun (ARF-D) who have opened up their own “polling stations” around the country apparently to not only select their candidate from two nominees, but also to gauge popular support for the party. I ran into one of those booths near the Komitas marker earlier today and snapped it with my mobile phone (photo below). RFE/RL also says the party is confident of victory.

A top leader of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun) claimed on Monday that the February 19 presidential election will be won by his party’s candidate, rather than Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian. Hrant Markarian, the de facto head of Dashnaktsutyun’s worldwide Bureau, also sounded upbeat about the vote’s freedom and fairness.

“Serzh will not be elected, and there will be no fraud,” Markarian told RFE/RL. He said he is confident that his party, which is represented in Sarkisian’s cabinet by three ministers, will emerge victorious from the contest.

Markarian predicted that the Dashnaktsutyun candidate, who will be nominated later this week, will at least reach the second round of voting which he said will be necessary for determining Armenia’s next president.

Local commentators agree that a run-off vote is a real possibility. But many of them believe that it would most probably pit Sarkisian against his most bitter opposition foe, former President Levon Ter-Petrosian, rather than the Dashnaktsutyun hopeful.

Like other Dashnaktsutyun leaders, Markarian refused to speculate on whether the nationalist party, which has long been at loggerheads with Ter-Petrosian, would endorse Sarkisian in that case. “I don’t want to comment on that variant because I am sure we will go into the second round,” he said. “I don’t know if we will face Serzh or Levon but am sure we will reach the second round.”

[…]

Dashnaktsutyun, meanwhile, continued on Monday its improvised national vote aimed gauging popular support for its two potential presidential candidates, Vahan Hovannisian and Armen Rustamian. The party opened at the weekend makeshift polling stations in Yerevan and the rest of the country, urging Armenians to cast ballots for one of the two men. The vote, the first of its kind ever organized in Armenia, will end on Thursday, the day before Dashnaktsutyun’s pre-election congress.

ARF-D Polling Booth, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2007

Well, although RFE/RL says that it is likely to be a run-off vote between Serzh Sarkisian and Levon Ter Petrosian, I’m not sure that everybody is convinced of that until the main pre-election campaign is underway. Veteran opposition politicians such as Vazgen Manukian have already warned that dislike of Ter Petrosian might exceed that even of Sarkisian, and to date it is only minor parties that have come out in support. So far others such as Raffi Hovannisian have not declared their favored candidate.

“Raffi has a problem,” reads a headline to a “168 Zham” analysis of the Armenian authorities’ refusal to recognize is eligibility to stand in the February 19 presidential election. “Staring from toady Raffi Hovannisian must decide whom to stand by in the upcoming presidential elections,” says the paper. “We hope he will not urge his electorate at the last minute to vote ‘in accordance with their conscience,’ which he usually does moments before National Assembly adopts key bills.”

Indeed, with the early to mid 1990s seen a painful memory for many Armenians, it remains to be seen if Ter Petrosian can redeem himself in the eyes of voters who see his administration of being responsible for spiraling corruption, power shortages, out-migration, and political assassinations. There are also plenty of other voices who are now making themselves heard about that period in Armenia’s history. RFE/RL reports that one of them is former Karabakh strongman Samuel Babayan.

Samvel Babayan, a former military leader of Nagorno-Karabakh, signaled over the weekend his readiness to support Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian in the upcoming presidential election and made a blistering attack on the latter’s most formidable opposition challenger.

Babayan pointedly denied the widely held belief that he feuded with Sarkisian during and after the war with Azerbaijan. He insisted that Sarkisian, the first commander-in-chief of Karabakh Armenian forces, was not “expelled” from Karabakh in 1993 contrary to former President Levon Ter-Petrosian’s claims.

Meeting with university students in Yerevan on November 3, Ter-Petrosian said Sarkisian was forced to leave Karabakh and lived in exile in Moscow before being appointed Armenia’s defense minister in summer 1993. “Serzh Sarkisian was expelled from Karabakh, he had problems, serious disputes there,” he said.

Babayan strongly denied the claim, saying that he and Sarkisian jointly planned the capture in April 1993 of Azerbaijan’s strategic Kelbajar district sandwiched between Armenia and the disputed enclave. That operation was followed by the occupation of five other Azerbaijani districts in summer and autumn 1993.

Babayan went on to accuse Ter-Petrosian of trying to stop the highly successful Armenian offensive that predetermined the outcome of the Karabakh war. “I will reveal what happened in reality and why Serzh Sarkisian was sent [to Moscow,]” he said. “It resulted from the fact that the then political leadership of Armenia was committing a crime in Nagorno-Karabakh to prevent the liberation of territories.”

According to both Babayan and Ter-Petrosian, while in Moscow, Sarkisian negotiated important Russian arms deliveries to the Armenians. “He did a useful, very important job,” the ex-president told students, adding that Sarkisian also made a “good” defense minister. But that did not prevent Ter-Petrosian from declaring at a November 16 rally that his decision to promote Sarkisian and another prominent Karabakh Armenian, Robert Kocharian, to high-level government positions in Yerevan has proved to be a “disaster.”

Of course, many consider Babayan to have his own dirty laundry from his time in Karabakh when he controlled most economic spheres before being jailed and later released for a botched attempt on the life of the self-declared republic’s president, Arkhady Ghukasian. Indeed, Babayan was hardly admired by many in Karabakh until his imprisonment. Some might argue that Babayan’s image post-conflict is worse than Ter Petrosian’s.

At anyrate, with more and more candidates and political parties coming forward, it remains to be seen whether Ter Petrosian will be able to successfully contest the election in a first round. Probably it will be reliant on who figures such as Raffi Hovannisian back the former leader, but even then, assuming another candidate doesn’t instead make it through, to win in a second round, Ter Petrosian will also need the support of Artur Baghdasarian and Vazgen Manukian.

Neverthless, Ter Petrosian’s team are taking the election very seriously indeed and have set up an official campaign site under a number of domain names and which also includes a blog. They’ve also broken my copyright in one instance, something which will be met with legal action unless the photo is removed or a credit is added. Anyway, Hetq Online, a publication with close links to Ter Petrosian’s team, has also posted an English translation of his last speech.