AP: Armenia Presidential Election Coverage

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1. Onnik 02.18.08 / 1am

   Roundup: Armenia geared up for upcoming presidential election

   YEREVAN, Feb. 17 (Xinhua) — Armenia has geared up for Tuesday’s presidential election as the final large-scale pre-election campaigning coming to an end in the capital of Armenia of the South Caucasus nation on Sunday.

   Large-scale rallies were organized on the Liberty Square in the capital during the weekend attended by tens of thousands of supporters of Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan and Levon Ter-Petrosian– first President of Armenia, who are making last-minute effort for canvassing as any campaign is forbidden on Monday.

   Sargsyan, also Chairman of the Republican Party of Armenia which won a majority of seats in parliamentary elections last May, leads the race joined by eight other candidates in opinion polls.

   “We can’t say the situations now are perfect because Armenia is so young, but I believe in Armenia’s future with our new president,” Airmen Yesayants, a graduate of Armenian State University who participated in Sunday’s rally for Sargsyan, told Xinhua.

   No “color revolution” will occur in Armenia, President Robert Kocharian, who is barred from running for a third five-year term, said in an interview with national television channels on Sunday.

   “Naturally enough, foreign countries and various forces abroad have their preferred candidates, but we do not see any crude interference in the election process,” he said.

   […]

   http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-02/18/content_7620258.htm
2. GT 02.18.08 / 1am

   absence of foreign media in Armenia is not only because of unimportance of Armenia as an economy, after all Georgia has no oil either, but because Armenia’s foreign policy and geo-political stance are so predictable, that it is boring. More so with Serj following in steps of RK.
3. Onnik 02.18.08 / 2am

   GT, no argument there and it’s depressing.
4. Onnik 02.18.08 / 2am

   Yet interestingly, it is precisely in the area of geopolitics that the West should be interested in Ter-Petrossian although as usual for an Armenian politician he seems to be contradicting himself.

   On the one hand, his supporters claim that Kocharian and Serge are ready to sell out Armenia and Karabakh and on the other, he then says something like this below in addition to criticizing Russia while saying the Kremlin is behind his presidential bid.

   Anyway, I think this report indicates his real position and I don’t think anyone would dispute it. Ironically, it is the one aspect of Armenia that I think needs changing and Ter-Petrossian could do that. Even so, it doesn’t appear as though the West is interested, but let’s see.

   Yerevan, Armenia - Armenia’s first president Levon Ter-Petrossian, who is again campaigning for the executive, on Sunday called radically new relations with neighbouring states the “firmest safeguard for economic development” in the post-Soviet country. He made the remarks during his first meeting with the press after a decade out of politics Sunday and only days before elections on Tuesday.

   Landlocked Armenia, cradled high in the Caucasus Mountains, has been forced to rely on a partnership with Russia and aid from Western allies, facing blockades along two of its borders.

   “We are blocked on all sides - the essential roads for Armenia out to the world are through Azerbaijan and Turkey,” Ter-Petrossian told journalists on the last day of campaigning before Tuesday’s vote.

   He stressed his foreign policy position had not changed from that he advocated when he resigned over a severe backlash to his conciliatory stand in peace talks over Azerbaijan’s ethnically- Armenian breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

   […]

   At a rally in the capital Yerevan on Saturday, Ter-Petrossian drew a crowd of about 25,000, but this number was easily topped Sunday at Sarkisian’s final rally.

   Sarkisian leads in polls with 50.7 per cent of the vote, just over the 50-per-cent barrier needed to win in the first round of the elections.

   Analysts said Sunday that his lead could be challenged if more than 68 per cent of voters turn out for the vote, one of the most active in the country’s since the end of the Soviet Union in 1991.

   […]

   Ter-Petrossian on Sunday accused the Armenian authorities of being “committed to the status-quo” and “lacking the political will” for a settlement with Nagarno-Karabakh especially because Kocharin and Sarkisian hail from the region.

   Despite his comments, Ter-Petrossian refused to elaborate on future relations with Turkey, an issue that has complicated Turkey’s relationship with the West and bid for European Union accession.

   The tense situation in the region has been seen to push Armenia closer to relations with Russia.

   Ter-Petrosian, who has spoken in favour of NATO accession talks and positively of US plans to deploy missile defence systems opposed by Russia, expressed concern over Russia’s growing stake in the country.

   “Maybe from an outside perspective Kocharian’s policies could be viewed as introducing a sovereign, vassal relationship with Russia,” he said.

   http://www.earthtimes.org/articles/show/186367,armenias-first-president-calls-for-new-foreign-policy.html
5. Allen 02.18.08 / 9pm

   There is no election coverage by foreign media…Everything I’m reading is about the karabakh conflict.

   International Herald Tribune is the only place I have found actual coverage of the election, and even this falls short and ignores much of the dynamics and realities of the last few months.

   (BBC)–The frozen Azeri-Armenian conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh is one of the most fiercely debated issues in the campaign for Tuesday’s presidential election in Armenia, the BBC’s Matthew Collin reports from Yerevan.

   (RFE/RL)–Ten years ago this month, Armenia’s first president fell victim to a dismal economic situation and Nagorno-Karabakh. Having served one term and half of another at war with Azerbaijan over the Armenian-populated province, Levon Ter-Petrossian’s calls for compromise were branded “weak” and “defeatist” by his political adversaries.

   (Reuters)–Ten years ago this month, Armenia’s first president fell victim to a dismal economic situation and Nagorno-Karabakh. Having served one term and half of another at war with Azerbaijan over the Armenian-populated province, Levon Ter-Petrossian’s calls for compromise were branded “weak” and “defeatist” by his political adversaries.
6. Michael Lalpin 02.19.08 / 12am

   The first hopeful indication that elections in Armenia might be peaceful is the DISINTEREST OF FOREIGN MEDIA in the the proceedings.
   Maybe I am naive, but peace does not sell news! Right?
7. Onnik 02.19.08 / 12am

   Hmmm, not entirely. Lack of it can also attract attention, but one supposes that Armenia isn’t of enough geopolitical interest. Basically, there needed to be enough coverage by now and there isn’t.

   On the other hand, that’s not to say that “revolutions” can’t happen without foreign attention. Problem is that they generally end up violent.

   Regarding concentration on Karabakh, my understanding as of last week was that this election wasn’t of interest to Western media and so somehow linking it to Kosovo is the only way to make it newsworthy.
8. Michael Lalpin 02.19.08 / 12am

   Onnik, I hope revolution is not in the cards!
   However, what’s your opinion in the co-relation of Kosovar/Artsax situation?
   Does the independance proclamation of Kosova create a precedence for aspiring independentists around the world?
9. Marilisa 02.19.08 / 1am

   The lack of coverage of the elections - at least in my country, in Italy - depends on the fact that the main source of information, RAI, the Public Television, has just one office in Istanbul for both the Caucasus and the Balkans. In this days, and it was the same with the Georgian elections, almost the whole staff is in Kosovo.

   As for newspapers, there is the old and bad habit not to give relevance to any news which is not on TV.

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