Serge Sargsyan Ends Campaign in Yerevan

The final pre-election campaign meeting by governmental favorite, prime minister Serge Sargsyan, was originally billed as taking place in Yerevan’s Republic Square. However, the swarm of people walking up the central Abovian street and Northern Avenue indicated something different and that was indeed the case. Probably in response to Levon Ter-Petrossian’s rally which drew as many as 40,000 people the day before, Sargsyan’s had been shifted there to once again participate in what can only be described as the numbers game.

That wasn’t unexpected and was actually quite predictable, in fact. Indeed, in such a game it was inevitable that calling upon a variety of administrative resources, the prime minister would win in lieu of actual proper campaigning. Not only did Sargsyan manage to fill Liberty Square, but people were also gathered on much of the territory outside the park surrounding Yerevan Opera — including Northern Avenue. A1 Plus criticizes the prime minister on the basis that many people were from the regions of Armenia, but if truth be known, so too were many of former president Levon Ter-Petrossian, ARF-D candidate Vahan Hovannisian, and Orinats Yerkir’s Artur Baghdasarian.

However, according to A1 Plus and RFE/RL there were some ethnic Armenians bussed in from the Javakheti region of neighbouring Georgia.

As was the case during other campaign rallies held by Sarkisian across the country, many in the crowd were civil servants and other public sectors. Also, a large part of rally participants appeared to have been bused from various regions of Armenia and even Georgia’s Armenian-populated Javakheti region.

According to Javakheti Armenians present at the rally, the Georgian nationals were brought to Yerevan overnight in at least 50 buses and minibuses. “We are citizens of Georgia,” one of them told RFE/RL. “We Georgian Armenians can’t vote but have come to rally for him because we think that he can help Javakheti Armenians.”

This was always the problem of the numbers game. That is, when Ter-Petrossian attracted 10-15,000 people to Liberty Square up until last month, other candidates had to match or better that figure — and they did. Artur Baghdasarian rallied up to 20,000 and Vahan Hovannisian might have even bettered that. So, when Ter-Petrossian pulled in 30-40,000 a week ago it was to be expected that on the eve of the presidential election and the last day of campaigning, the prime minister had to exceed that. And he did. Sargsyan managed maybe twice as many, but the main point was lost.

Gathering 1-2 percent of the electorate in Yerevan is not the way to conduct an election, especially as it often means that actual campaigning is irrelevant. Instead, on freely broadcast campaign slots on Public TV, each candidate can edit and broadcast the images according to their subjective needs and make out that they have overwhelming support in society even if the opposition Heritage party drew less than 100 people last year but still made it into parliament despite other such as Republic and Impeachment attracting as many as 15,000 at times and failing to make it past the 5 percent National Assembly threshold.

The situation is made even more problematic by the tendency to inflate figures for attendance in Liberty Square. While Ter-Petrossian can assemble 30-40,000 people in Liberty Square without applying pressure or providing buses, his team’s tendency to multiply the actual number by ten was not helpful. For all his faults, and no matter the criticism that can be directed towards the prime minister, E-Channel reports that this reality was not lost on the prime minister.

Talking about presidential candidate Levon Ter-Petrossian’s meeting on February 16, Serzh Sargsyan said, “10 thousand people gather, saying there are 80 thousand of us, 20 thousand people gather, saying there are 300 thousand of. How many of us are her now, people? 1 million, two million? You are the representatives of the majority – we have invited you here, so that once again they understand they are the minority, that they have nothing to do with the authorities, that they cannot shock this country.”

And if there was any doubt that Sargsyan’s rally was designed to combat the pre-election campaign ads of Ter-Petrossian, the march through central Yerevan proved that to be the case. Whether it will succeed or not remains to be seen, but it’s kind of ironic in a way. The meeting was also probably a response to attempts by Ter-Petrossian to woo oligarch such as Gagik Tsarukian away from Sargsyan as well as cast doubts on his policy regarding resolution of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. Leaving no doubt where their sympathies lie, behind him on stage was Tsarukian and Karabakh writer and political activist, Zori Balayan.

Anyway, it is hard to tell how much genuine support Sargsyan has in the country although some independent observers put it at 30-35 percent. Nevertheless, with Sargsyan representing continuity and stability, as compared to the rather vitriolic discourse of leading opposition candidates Baghdasarian and Ter-Petrossian, that could reach as high as 40 percent in a relatively clean election or even more if vote bribes are handed out or dislike for the former president is as high as some believe it is.

Of course, nobody is expecting Sargsyan to lose, but then again, nobody is expecting Baghdasarian and especially Ter-Petrossian to accept defeat either. Time will tell.

Photos: © Onnik Krikorian / Oneworld Multimedia 2008