Pop Music & Pre-Election Crusades

Writing for The Moscow Times, the BBC’s Matthew Collin reports on the campaign tactics by two of the candidates to date. In particular, Sargsyan is wheeling out the country’s musical talent, while Ter-Petrossian continues on his crusade, ironically enough, under one of my photographs.

As the race for Armenia’s presidency heats up, with candidates hurling abuse at each other and gunshots fired outside campaign offices, pop music has emerged as a propaganda tool in this increasingly fierce struggle for power. Last week, Serzh Sargsyan, the current prime minister and the favored candidate of the political establishment, deployed Armenia’s 2008 Eurovision Song Contest hopeful, Sirusho, as he chased the youth vote.

Sirusho is a cheerful but chaste-looking former child star who seems to specialize in romantic ballads with an ethnic twist. She is one of a series of Armenian pop stars who have joined the Sargsyan roadshow and have publicly supported Serzh.

When it comes to sugar-sweet choruses and faux R&B grooves, the opposition candidates seem to be lagging behind. But Levon Ter-Petrosyan, the first president of post-Soviet Armenia who recently made a dramatic comeback and is a candidate for the top job again, does have a feisty little ringtone available for download from his web site, featuring a campaign-trail chant over a breathless house groove. It’s called “Struggle,” which fits nicely with the clenched-fist campaign logo and Warhol-style portrait on the site.

Photo © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2008