2008 Presidential Election Monitor

With Saturday’s presidential election in the neighboring Republic of Georgia now behind us, it’s time to look at the latest news and events surrounding the next vote to elect a head of state in the region. Next month, on 19 February, Armenians go to the polls to choose a successor to the incumbent president, Robert Kocharian, who cannot seek a third consecutive term in office.

If the polarized local media is to be believed, the 2008 presidential election in Armenia will be between two candidates — prime minister Serzh Sarkisian and the first, former president, Levon Ter Petrosian. Even so, opinion polls do not yet show such a situation. Indeed, the polls, the credibility of which have been vouched for by the U.S. Embassy in Yerevan, show that while Sarkisian is leading the pack, Ter Petrosian is not even certain to make second place.

Such a situation also appears to be confirmed by random conversations with voters, especially among youth. For example, only today I witnessed one conversation between several university students on the presidential election in Georgia. The topic soon changed to the vote next month in Armenia with one 24-year old graduate who had studied abroad telling the students she would vote for Ter Petrosian.

She was greeted with hostility and verbal attacks.

Of course, the incident in itself is not a scientific assessment of the whole of society, but pretty representative of many conversations I’ve had with Armenians to date. That said, the official pre-election campaign is not yet upon us, and the amount of black propaganda brought into play against Ter Petrosian is significant, to say the least.

However, if Ter Petrosian’s camp has no reason to consider him the main opposition challenger, RFE/RL reports that other candidates — namely the prime minister — are getting too far ahead of themselves as well.

Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian will likely win Armenia’s upcoming presidential election without having to face an opposition challenger in a run-off vote, a spokesman for his Republican Party (HHK) said on Monday.

“I strongly believe it is very likely that the government candidate, Republican Party leader Serzh Sarkisian, will win outright in the first round [of voting,]” Eduard Sharmazanov told RFE/RL. “Things will clear up after the official start of the election campaign.”

While Sarkisian is widely regarded, not least because of the HHK’s tight grip on many government bodies, as the election favorite, few observers think that he is popular enough to garner the absolute majority of votes already in the first round slated for February 19. Even government-connected pollsters have put his approval ratings at up to 35 percent.

Serzh Sarkisian, Pan-Armenian Games Finale, Opera, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2007

Incidentally, after the U.S. Embassy in Yerevan effectively backed up the “government-connected” pollster and the credibility of the U.S. financed poll which also carries with it the credibility of the Gallup organization, perhaps it’s time for RFE/RL to start mentioning that fact in reports. There is so far no evidence to suggest the polls are inaccurate, but they continue to be questioned, now in an article for EurasiaNet.

The United States has offered to organize and finance a first-ever exit poll in Armenia as part of an effort to promote a free-and-fair presidential election on February 19. The initiative has been endorsed by the election favorite, Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian, while causing serious misgivings among his main challengers.

The main source of opposition candidates’ concern is the apparent willingness of US officials to rely on an Armenian polling organization with reputed close ties to the Armenian government. Its pre-election opinion polls have long been criticized as misleading by Armenian opposition and civic groups.

[…]

Preparations for the presidential ballot were high on the agenda of a December 4 meeting between Sarkisian and Joseph Pennington, the US charge d’affaires in Yerevan. A government statement quoted the Armenian premier as welcoming the proposed exit poll. “We were very pleased at the prime minister’s very positive response, and we hope to be able to do this,” Pennington told reporters on December 17. He said the exit poll would “enhance the credibility” of official vote results.

[…]

The statement made it clear that the Vilnius-based Baltic Surveys Ltd./Gallup Organization will also be entrusted with holding the planned exit poll on election day, suggesting that the ASA will be closely involved in its conduct. According to aides to Ter-Petrosian, Hovannisian and Baghdasarian interviewed by EurasiaNet, ASA’s participation would be enough to make the poll untrustworthy for Sarkisian’s three main challengers.

“We don’t trust the Armenian Sociological Association and believe that it works on government orders,” claimed Arzumanian. “If Serzh Sarkisian issues a relevant order, the results of the exit poll will be the same as the ones the authorities will try to get by fraudulent means on election day.”

[…]

A spokesman for Sarkisian’s Republican Party of Armenia scoffed at these statements. “They know very well that Serzh Sarkisian’s rating is much higher than theirs,” Eduard Sharmazanov told EurasiaNet. “And I don’t think that the Americans would entrust this job to non-professionals.”

As I’ve said, there is so far no indication that Ter Petrosian has the support of a sizable number of Armenians, with public rallies barely attracting more than 15,000 regardless of what pro-radical opposition supporters say. Moreover, as Christine Quirk explains, for organizations such as Gallup, a lot rides on the credibility of the results. Most recently, the accuracy of such polls were called into question in Georgia, but parallel vote tabulation confirmed their accuracy.

Regardless, the point about Sarkisian’s rating is true. There is no indication at all that the prime minister could win in a first round without falsifying the vote. Of course, if the Republican party can be considered to be exaggerating their chances, the same is especially true for Ter Petrosian team, a ragged collection of minor or insignificant political parties which failed to attract the support of the electorate in last year’s parliamentary election.

RFE/RL nonetheless quotes Ter Petrosian’s campaign manager, former foreign minister Alexander Arzoumanian, as saying that the first president could win in a first round. Yeah, right…

“There is no way Armenia’s government can be reproduced in one round,” said Aleksandr Arzumanian, the campaign chief of another opposition contender, Levon Ter-Petrosian. “Only an opposition candidate like Levon Ter-Petrosian who can win in the first round.”

Also expecting a two-round ballot is the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), a junior partner in the HHK-led governing coalition which has nominated its own presidential candidate, Vahan Hovannisian. The Dashnaktsutyun leadership in Armenia will meet on Tuesday to discuss Hovannisian’s campaign platform.

Alexander Arzoumanian, Opposition Rally, Liberty Square, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2007

Still, while opinion polls and general interaction with the population do not indicate that Ter Petrosian can count on more than 10 percent of the vote, that could all change in the pre-election campaign. With the pro-government media having launched an all out assault on the president who until recently was always considered “unpopular” by almost everyone, successfully answering the criticisms leveled against him could change the situation.

Levon Ter Petrosian, Opposition Rally, Liberty Square, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2007

Ter Petrosian, for example, is one of the first candidates to release their election manifesto, so a solid campaign could really appeal to voters. The full election manifesto is available in Armenian on Ter Petrosian’s official election site, which incidentally includes a violation of my copyright, but RFE/RL have an English summary available.

Former President Levon Ter-Petrosian made public his election campaign manifesto on Monday, pledging to turn Armenia into a “normal” state where governments are formed as a result of free elections and respect laws, human rights and free enterprise.

The 16-page document also reiterates his bitter critique of the country’s current leadership. It claims that Prime Minister Serzh Sarkisian’s victory in next month’s presidential election would be “tantamount to a national disaster.”

[…]

The document also lays out his vision for Armenia’s future. It says that, if elected, Ter-Petrosian will strive for the “dismantling of the existing kpletrocratic system” and the establishment of “full-fledged democracy” anchored in free elections, protection of human rights and judicial independence. Also, law-enforcement bodies and the military would no longer be used as tools for government repression.

These pledges will ring hollow to Ter-Petrosian’s longtime critics who see few fundamental differences between Armenia’s current and former rulers. They point, among other things, to the Ter-Petrosian government’s failure to hold a single election recognized as free and fair by the international community.

Ter-Petrosian’s unveiled socioeconomic agenda is based on three key principles of market-based economics which he believes are absent in Armenia: a level playing field for all businesspeople, fair economic competition, and absolute protection of private property. While pledging to retrieve what he says are huge amounts of money “stolen from the people” by wealthy government-connected businessmen, Ter-Petrosian says that he would not seek a massive “re-distribution of property” once in power.

Ter-Petrosian further commits himself to launching a crackdown on widespread tax evasion which he says should primarily target large corporate taxpayers that are believed to grossly underreport their earnings thanks to government patronage. “According to foreign experts, only 22 percent of the state budget’s tax revenues is currently paid by large entrepreneurs, whereas [that proportion] should have stood at 75 percent” reads his campaign platform.

[…]

The document is far less specific on foreign policy matters, with Ter-Petrosian saying only that he would strengthen Armenia’s relations with Russia, Georgia and Iran and promising “constructive efforts” to normalize ties with Azerbaijan and Turkey.

On the Karabakh conflict, the manifesto says Ter-Petrosian would show the “political will” to achieve a compromise peace deal with Azerbaijan that would enable the Karabakh Armenians to exercise their “right to self-determination.” It does not specify Ter-Petrosian’s position on international mediators’ existing peace proposals that are similar to a Karabakh settlement which he was ready to accept before his resignation in 1998.

Interestingly, the RFE/RL item also reports that Ter Petrosian’s campaign will be managed by Khachatur Sukiasian, one of Armenia’s first oligarchs, formerly known only by his Grzo nickname, who made his fortune under Ter Petrosian thanks to family links to the president’s notorious fugitive minister of the interior, Vano Siradeghian.

Khachatur Sukiasian, Opposition Rally, Liberty Square, Yerevan, Republic of Armenia © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2007

One of his district chiefs will also be Pargev Ohanian, a former judge who was responsible for the prosecution of opposition activists in 2003-2004 and who is also implicated in allowing traffickers get away with light sentences. Regardless, the point is that if Ter Petrosian does mount an effective campaign and also attract the support of more prominent opposition parties such as Heritage, then he could be seen to have a chance.

If that was the case and Ter Petrosian made it through to a second round, then the support of Orinats Yerkir would also be crucial. Fortunately for the opposition, A1 Plus reports that the party of former Speaker of Parliament, Artur Baghdasarian, has said they would in that case support the first president.

On the other hand, the same argument would also apply to other candidates such as Vahan Hovannisian, who is already apparently off to a good start in this regard, as well as Baghdasarian. Failure to contest the election properly, however, would only result in one likelihood. That is, a victory for the prime minister, Serzh Sarkisian.

We’ll know soon enough. The pre-election campaign starts in less than two weeks.