Levon Ter Petrosian and Raffi Hovannisian Meet Again

RFE/RL reports that the former president, Levon Ter Petrosian, has once again met with his first foreign minister, now opposition party leader Raffi Hovannisian, in an apparent attempt to win support for the former’s candidacy in the 19 February presidential election in Armenia. As mentioned on this blog, Ter Petrosian sorely needs the support of Hovannisian who is one of the few political figures highly respected by the population.

In a short statement issued on Monday, Ter-Petrosian’s campaign office said the two men met in Ter-Petrosian’s Yerevan mansion to discuss the political situation in the country and, in particular, “issues related to the forthcoming presidential elections.” “They agreed to continue those discussions,” the statement said.

Neither Hovannisian, nor his Zharangutyun (Heritage) party issued any statements on the meeting. Aides to the U.S.-born former foreign minister said they are unaware of its details.

The two opposition figures already held election-related talks last month. Hovannisian, who had served as independent Armenia’s first foreign minister in the Ter-Petrosian administration, is among a dozen opposition leaders whom the ex-president has publicly urged to back his presidential bid.

Hovannisian is arguably the most popular of those leaders, making his endorsement particularly significant for Ter-Petrosian. The Zharangutyun leader is also being courted by the Armenian Revolutionary Federation, a governing party which will contest the election with its own candidate.

Raffi Hovannisian, Opposition Rally, Matenadaran, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2003

Hovannisian is not eligible to himself run for presidency given that he has not been a citizen of the Republic of Armenia for at least 10 years. However, given the controversy surrounding Ter Petrosian’s time in power in the 1990s, his endorsement of the former president would be quite monumental in political terms. Other prominent opposition figures, such as Vazgen Manukian, are not so supportive of the first president.

“These authorities must go and that is inevitable,” he said. “But who should replace them? I fear that we would get more of the same [with Ter-Petrosian’s return to power.]”

[…]

“They are putting the people in a very difficult situation because the majority of the people do not accept either party,” Manukian told a news conference. “There are people who consider Levon Ter-Petrosian the lesser evil but there are also many, many people who consider Serzh Sarkisian the lesser evil. And I don’t exclude that if Levon Ter-Petrosian and Serzh Sarkisian go into the second round Serzh Sarkisian will emerge as a legitimate president.”

This being Armenia, RFE/RL reports that angry accusations are now being traded. Actually, they appear to be quite vitriolic, sensational and possiblyu scandalous, indeed. Interesting to note that the opposition can engage in the same type of “black propaganda” as the government does.

The pro-Ter-Petrosian daily “Haykakan Zhamanak” published on Saturday excerpts from what it presented as Manukian’s private notes confiscated by security forces during the 1996 crackdown on his National Democratic Union (AZhM) and other major opposition groups. The paper said they were written in the months leading up to the disputed September 1996 election, official results of which showed Ter-Petrosian narrowly defeating Manukian. The latter continues to consider himself the rightful winner of the vote described as deeply flawed by Western observers.

The newspaper allegations are certain to rekindle the long-running feud between the two most important leaders of the 1988 movement for Nagorno-Karabakh’s unification with Armenia who jointly headed the former Soviet republic’s first post-Communist government. They will also almost certainly preclude any cooperation between them in the upcoming presidential election.

Manukian was quoted by “Haykakan Zhamanak” as stressing the need to create a inner-government network of spies who would provide him with confidential information which would then be used for spreading discord within the Ter-Petrosian administration and blackmailing its rival factions. He would also allegedly cultivate “well-to-do friends” who would finance the AZhM and be rewarded with “plots of land and factories” in the event of regime change.

[…]

In an interview with RFE/RL, Manukian dismissed the written statements attributed to him as a fraud and said he will ask sate prosecutors to launch an official investigation into their authenticity. He said a forensic examination will establish that the handwriting of the notes is not his.

The local print media also comments on the type of infighting that usually results in personal ambitions by particular candidates favoring the authorities. Either the electorate conclude that there is no alternative to officials currently in power, see the opposition as just a group of individuals seeking to find themselves in lucrative positions, or ultimately resign themselves to apathy, become cynical, and take vote bribes instead.

“Ter-Petrosian is an opposition candidate,” editorializes “Aravot.” “Seven other nominated candidates also claim to be in opposition. It would be logical to suggest that they should be the first president’s partners at least on some issues. But it appears now that those seven candidates are in opposition not to the current authorities but Levon. And not to today’s presidential candidate Ter-Petrosian but the former head of state … But it is obvious that if the candidates do not concentrate on criticism of today’s vices, if they don’t suggest ways of overcoming them, then [it will mean that] they are participating in the election campaign not to win the presidency but for other purposes.”

“In the global sense, our society is a society of guilty and dishonest people,” claims “168 Zham.” “A considerable part of our society was engaged in vote falsifications and accepted vote bribes.”

In more positive news, RFE/RL reports on a U.S. proposal to introduce the first ever exit poll for an election in Armenia. Previous attempts to assess past elections have usually been conducted through parallel vote tabulation, reportedly by the National Democratic Institute (NDI), but results have never been made public.